A Typical Fridays
by Black-Neko-Chan
Summary: 30 lyrics, 30 oneshot Thiefshipping chapters, a based off lyrics from the song "Friday." Most are humorous, some are serious, and some are angsty. Give it a chance and I'm sure you'll enjoy it! Basically, it's a plethora of love!
1. 7 AM, Waking Up In The Morning

Hello everyone! My goodness, it's been such a long time since I've come out with anything new for the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom. But, I _do_ have something new for you all! My friend Lily-Finn178 and I have decided to make our own writing meme! With the song "Friday!" We'll each be writing a fanfic using all the lyrics from the song that do not repeat. I have chosen to write for Yu-Gi-Oh, and my beloved Thiefshipping. Which means, this fanfic here will have thirty oneshots/drabbles, each focusing on one particular lyric, and it'll be updated each Friday. The reason we're not using the entire song is because, if we stick with our once-a-week schedule, that would take close to two years. Soo yeahhhh, we're cutting down some.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or the song "Friday" by Rebecca Black. Seriously. I don't.

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><p>Chapter One: 7 AM, Waking Up In The Morning<p>

The very first thing Marik noticed when he woke up that Friday morning, courtesy of his alarm clock blaring in his ear (somehow even more obnoxious today than usual), was that he was not alone in his bed. Sleeping across from him was a slender body draped in long, white hair. Marik stared.

His initial reaction was one of utter repulse. There was something absolutely _horrifying _about someone else sharing his bed. All the disgusting skin particles and germs that had no doubt gotten stuck in his covers, and what if the person had _sweat_? Ew!

After he had reigned in and squashed his OCD tendencies, Marik's second reaction was the formation of a smug grin across his lips that even the headache brought on by the ring of the alarm clock could not dissipate.

_Oh._

_Yeah._

Apparently, though he could only vaguely remember last night, he had scored big time at the party he'd gone to. Which was wonderfully ironic, because he'd figured that no one would actually get any ass at that thing. Really, who held a party on a Thursday night, of all things? Marik had gone only in hopes of getting some free alcohol. And he had. A lot, if the lack of concrete memory and sleeping beauty beside him were anything to go by.

The prone form was facing the wall, thus rendering Marik unable to see her face. But from the slender curves and rising slopes visible under the silk covers of his bed, he could make a pretty reasonable estimate that this chick was smoking. Oh god, unless she was a butter face… He prayed to the gods of his ancestors that this was not the case.

Slowly, ever so slowly, so not to wake the lady (although if the raucous sound of the alarm clock had not done the job, Marik doubted that he himself would), Marik leant over her sleeping form, and attempted to move her beautiful silver hair from her face. His breath caught in his throat as he got closer, and one shaky hand gently landed on the skin of her fair cheek. With a soft, sweeping motion, he brushed away the strands of delicate hair that had been blocking the face of his conquest from view. A violet eye peeked through the enclosing eyelids at the lady beneath him, as Marik caught sight of her for the first time. The breath that had been held captive released itself all at once in a shrill, horrified scream. A second later, the sound of a very large "BAM!" could be heard throughout the entire Ishtar house as Marik fell off the side of his bed and crashed to the floor.

"Y-Y-Y-YOU!" Marik screamed, index finger held high and accusatory at the one still on the bed, once he had righted himself from his ungainly fall.

"Yeah, yeah, it's me, now shut the fuck up and go back to sleep, Ishtar, before I wake up completely and kick your ass," Bakura drawled huskily, voice still rough from sleep.

"Godammit Bakura!" Marik shrieked, still in a state of scandal. Bakura lifted his head from the pillow he was using, and _glared_ at Marik like he was the worst thing that had happened to him all day. Then, he flopped back down on the bed, and pulled the covers up and over his head.

"I told you, this needs to stop happening!" Marik continued, not one to back down that easily. (And besides, it wasn't like he'd never been on the receiving end of one of those before).

"Yeah, and I told _you_, stop going to the same parties I do. You think I want to wake up and find out I've been shoving my cock in my best friend's ass all night long? Believe me, pretty boy, I'm not exactly having a great time here either." Came the remark from the bulge of blanket.

Marik could not keep his cheeks from heating up after _that_, and he finally stood up from the floor and marched right up to the bed, feeling indignant. He grabbed a hold of the numerous sheets and blankets covering the spot that had once been his sacred area, and heaved them all off with a mighty pull, revealing a still-very-naked Bakura.

"GAAHH! PUT SOME CLOTHES ON, WILL YOU? MY EYES! MY POOR, VIRGIN EYES!" Marik screamed, turning away from the sight that had offended him so. From behind him came the sound of some _very_ angry grumbling and some choice words directed at him as Bakura presumably went searching for his clothes. He was definitely _not_ a morning type of person, even less with a bad hangover.

"Oh yeah, virgin eyes," Bakura muttered. "Probably about as virgin as the rest of you, and seeing as this has happened like five times now, can't be all that virgin. Stupid fucking pansy, shouldn't be inviting me home then if you don't want to see something you won't like."

"It's not like I wanted to!"

"Well there you go! Now I'm dressed! Anything else his royal bitchiness requires, or maybe now I can actually get some sleep without having to worry about you screaming your head off every five second," Bakura snarled. "And speaking of clothes, maybe you should put some on yourself, idiot."

Marik almost dropped the sheets that he was still holding as he realized that yes, he was still naked. He'd been so upset to find Bakura in his bed with him that he hadn't even noticed the fact that he was still in the nude. With a quiet "eep!", he began to frantically search for his clothes. His shirt was tossed carelessly on the floor, and he found his pants hanging precariously from the corner of his desk. His boxers were somehow in the closet, heavens knows how they got there, and Marik _really_ did not want to find out, either. Maybe it was a good thing that he still couldn't remember what had transpired during that party.

When he turned around to put the blankets back on the bed, he noticed that Bakura was looking him over with an appreciative, and slightly hungry look. It was the same look, Marik noted with growing disturbance, that he often saw his friend give to a big piece of raw meat before tearing a bite out of it.

"You know, when you bend over like that, the view's not all too bad," Bakura commented with a smirk.

"Bakura…" Marik warned. Bakura merely smiled innocently, and advanced on Marik with gleaming eyes. Marik took a step back, and somehow found himself against his wall. He quickly eyed the distance to the door and was about to run for it, clothes be damned, but when he looked again at Bakura, the other male was now only standing about a foot away.

"Bakura, stop it, now. I mean it! I will hit you!" Marik threatened. Bakura's smile only grew, and when Marik raised his hand to make good on his threat, the other teen skillfully caught it.

"I've been thinking, Marik," Bakura paused thoughtfully, "about our situation here. No matter where we go, we always wind up in bed with one another, even if we'd just spent the entire night talking to beautiful women. Now obviously neither of us wants this to happen, but because it constantly continues to, something must be going right. Maybe we should stop fighting this, Marik, and just let it flow." Bakura was much closer now, almost on top of Marik, and the blonde found himself desperately wondering where all that space had gone.

"No, no, I think that sounds like a very bad idea Bakura, very bad. Now, you should just let me go, because it's all ready seven twenty, and we've both got to get ready for—"

But Bakura wasn't letting him go, because Bakura was leaning closer and closer to Marik's face, and Marik's eyes were focusing on his lips that were inching forward, and at the moment he really didn't care what they were going to be late for anyways, because he was expecting those lips to—

"Marik! You better be awake and dressed! You've got to leave for school in about twenty minutes!"

Both boys stopped in their… _activities_… and stared at the door, from which the voice of Marik's sister had just come floating up.

"That's what I was trying to tell you about," Marik said weakly. Bakura frowned and pulled away. He flipped off the door, as if Isis could see that through the wood, and then sat on the bed and toyed with the sheets while Marik dressed. Having finished with that, an awkward silence fell about the room as Marik stood in the middle of the floor and stared. He opened his mouth to say _something_ about what had just transpired, but he really had no idea of _what_ to say. He had just nearly been kissed by his "straight" best friend. And, he had really been looking forward to it, too.

"Well come on then, two little boys, off to school are we," Bakura said randomly as he jumped up from the bed and grabbed Marik's hand. After ninja-ing down the stairs and out the door to avoid being spotted by his sister, the two took a seat together on the bus that would bring them to the hellhole called school.

"So," Marik started hesitantly, unsure of where to start.

"Next time, this is going down at my house. No bothersome sister to pester us out of bed," Bakura said. He smirked as he leant back against the bus seat, and Marik felt a smile tugg on his lips, even as he fell right back into their normal routine.

"Oh yeah? Who said there would be a next time? _Next time_, I'm going to find some hot woman to bang, not you!"

"Ha! No woman would ever fuck you, Ishtar. You look too much like a woman yourself!"

"Bakura!"

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><p>All right! So how did you all like it? Please leave a review and tell me! And remember, I will be updating once a week, I promise! So please stick with me? Thanks!<p> 


	2. Gotta Be Fresh, Gotta Go Downstairs

Hi again! All right, chapter two. (Actually had this one typed last Friday too, haha) So, now that I've typed up this one and have a plan for some other ones, I've got a pretty good idea of how this will be written. So some warnings.

First of all, OOC-ness. Not bad, don't worry. But there is some. Just be warned. Trust in my abilities to write it well, and I'll trust in yours to still enjoy.

Another thing. Most of these WILL BE humor, but some (like this one) will be on the angsty side. Just like most of these will be T-rated or less, but I MIGHT have some individual chapters that are M. MAYBE. This is not promising anything, because really, I'm not sure yet XP But, if I do make any of these M-rated, I will tell you at the beginning of the chapter. Just like I will tell you the genre of the following chapter, like if it's angsty. If I don't say anything, just assume it's humor and T.

Now for AU vs. non-AU. For some reason, when I write YGO, most of the time, it's AU. Just like most of the time, it's from Marik's POV for some reason. Just like with writing everything from Marik's POV, I'm going to try to write some of these that are based on the anime/manga. For example, the next chapter should be anime/manga-based, unless I change my mind for some reason. I've already changed it once. But anyways, that's it now, so sorry for the long AN, and now we can get onto the disclaimer, and then the chapter!

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh, nor do I own the song "Friday" by Rebecca Black. I'm just using both for my own means.

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><p>Chapter Two: Gotta Be Fresh, Gotta Go Downstairs<p>

"I'm not coming down!"

"Marik! You need to get out of that room, right this instant! You're going to be late!"

"No! I'm not ready for this! What if I'm making a mistake?"

"Marik… Fine, if you won't come down on your own, I'll just get someone who will be able to make you."

And that was why he was here. He'd known when he got the invitation in the mail that he wouldn't be attending, but he couldn't stop himself from driving down to the church where it would be held, and staying at a hotel nearby. He wouldn't go, he told himself, but he couldn't help wanting to be near. That was what got him there, in the end. If he'd never left his house, never been so pathetic… when Isis called his phone and told him she needed help, he would have never been there. But now he was, and it hurt all over again.

"Marik! There's someone here to see you, so why don't you come down?" Isis called up the stairs. The door of the second left down the hallway was the one Marik had locked himself up in, she told him.

"Yeah right sis, like I'm going to fall for _that_. Why don't you come back when you've got some new material?" He could almost hear the eye roll in Marik's voice, and a smile reached his lips as he prepared himself to speak.

"I always knew you'd be late for your own wedding, pretty boy."

For a second, there was only silence. And then Bakura heard the door open, and a second later he saw Marik, actually saw Marik, looking exactly the way he remembered seeing him last. His blonde hair was in disarray, his large violet eyes wide with confusion and incredulity. The only differences were that seven years had passes since then, and now Marik wore a striking black tuxedo that was more off him than it was on. The blond stared at him for only a second, and then he had ran down the stairs, and Bakura was enveloped in a hug by his old friend. Marik smelled like spice and cologne, and his hair like mangos. Bakura almost cracked a grin. He'd always used the _girliest_ scents to shampoo with.

"Bakura? Is it really you?" Marik questioned, pulling away from the hug now to look the other in the face. "I didn't think you'd come. It's been seven years since I saw you last, and four since we last talked. I sent out an invitation, but I didn't even know if you were still living in the same house. Where have you been? And are you feeling all right? You look tired."

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Bakura answered, waving his hands to distract the blonde from asking any more questions. "I know it's been a long time. I've been… really busy, of late." It wasn't the best excuse, but then he hadn't been planning on making one. Even if he had thought about going to the wedding, he'd never expected Marik to actually _see_ him there. "But I had to come here for the big day. How could I miss it?" He grinned, the expression coming easily to his face after all the years he'd used it. Just like normal. Everything was, except here was Marik, getting married.

"Well! How about we head back into the room, and you two can catch up while I fix this mess that you made, Marik," Isis interrupted quickly, before conversation could develop any further. She ushered both boys up into the room, where she immediately position Marik in front of a large mirror and began to make sense of his hair.

"So who's the lucky lady?"

"You remember Kujaku Mai from our class?"

"That old harpy? When did this happen?"

"Well, I bumped into her a few years ago. I might have mentioned it to you on the phone once. She'd never really noticed me in school, but we hit it off when we met up again. I met with her more and more often, and things just sort of… naturally progressed from there," Marik explained, wincing as Isis ran her comb through a knot.

"I bet the two of you will have beautiful blonde kids," Bakura chucked.

"Yeah, she seems pretty sure of that," Marik agreed, smiling some. Conversation lapsed for a moment, and he noticed Isis eyeing him intently. With a renewal of his smile, Bakura set about doing what he'd been asked here for.

"Do you love her?" He questioned, completely serious now.

"With all my heart," Marik answered immediately.

"Well then what are you so worried about?"

"I… I don't really know, that I'm making a mistake. What if I mess everything up? I don't want her to hate me. And, Mai really wants kids some day, and I… how am I supposed to be a father? What if I turn out like my own? I don't want to do that to my children," Marik admitted. Bakura expected him to turn away, pretend like he hadn't just made the admission that he had, but Marik did the complete opposite and turned to face him instead, desperate for answers. This surprised Bakura. His friend was openly discussing his fears, not pretending that they no longer existed, as he always had during the entire length of time that Bakura had known him. In the past, the moment someone had mentioned his father, Marik had always shut up tight like a clam. But now he was… well, different. This wasn't exactly the same Marik that Bakura had known. Not anymore. Now he was Mai's Marik, wasn't he?

"You worry too much," Bakura smiled. "You love Mai, right? Then you won't make a mistake. You'll take care of her, and give her everything she could ever want, and you'll love her until the day that you die. And you'd be a great father. You'd never turn out like yours was. He didn't care about anything, and you're already worried about these children that aren't anything more than an idea. When you do have them, they'll love you every bit as much as Mia does. And sure, you might mess something up here or there, but you'll fix it in the end, and you'll learn from it. I know that you will, Marik."

Silence in the room again. Isis had finished up with Marik's hair, and was now working on fixing his outfit. He held his arm out to her as she straightened his sleeve and cuff, now gazing at the floor like Bakura had expected him to from the beginning.

"You're right," Marik chuckled. He looked up at Bakura and smiled slowly, then laughed again. "Of course you're right. Everything will be fine, won't it? I'm just nervous because it's finally here. I proposed a year ago, and even though it has been a while, I just guess I never figured that things would happen so quickly."

"There you go. Now you've got the right attitude," Bakura said. They waited in a comfortable silence while Isis finished up. Soon, Marik was looking the best that Bakura had ever seen, and he was about to go and get married.

"Thank you, Bakura," Marik whispered. He was in the blonde's embrace once more, being held tightly to the other's chest. This time Bakura lifted his own arms and wrapped them around the other as well. They remained this way for some time, and Bakura felt his heart pang.

"Will you be staying for a few days?" Marik questioned.

"I'm sorry, but I can't. I would really like to, but I almost couldn't make the time to come to this as it was," Bakura answered. Marik released him, and now a melancholic frown marred his pretty features.

"Oh. Okay." Bakura felt guilty, but there really wasn't anything for him to do to help. He shouldn't have even come here, shouldn't have even seen Marik as it was.

"Promise me that you'll answer your phone from time to time though, okay? It's great finally getting to see you again, and I've got so much to tell you about, and ask. I don't want to go such a long time without talking to you again. So promise me, Bakura," Marik said. His eyes glittered fiercely, and Bakura felt terrible about lying to him now. But he wasn't going to start this all over again, not now. He shouldn't have even come.

"Of course I will."

"You better. If you're busy, then just call me back sometime at night when you get home, okay? I mean it, Bakura!"

"Yeah, yeah, don't worry. I'll be sure to call home and soothe your worries," Bakura joked, grinning once more. Just like back in the old days.

Isis didn't let them talk any longer than that. Marik had a wedding to hurry too, and if he didn't start moving quickly, he really would be late. After giving his friend another hug, he hurried off to wherever he was supposed to be, Isis in tow. Bakura thought about just skipping the event and heading back to his hotel room, but against his better judgment, he decided to attend now that he was already here. He stood in the back, far away from everyone else, and kept his eyes on Marik the entire time, while the audience ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the bride.

"Shouldn't you be sitting up there, with everyone else?" Bakura questioned without once taking his gaze away from Marik.

"I doubt that Marik will mind too much," Isis said. She turned toward Bakura, and for this one time only, he looked away from Marik, and to her instead.

"I want to thank you for coming, Bakura. I know that it meant a lot to Marik, and a lot to me, too. And I apologize for bringing you down here. You weren't originally planning on coming, were you?" She asked. Her soft brown eyes took on a look of sadness, and what was almost pity. They were not the same color, but they looked and felt the same as Marik's own did.

"Nah, it's not really my style," Bakura joked, grin slipping back into place.

"You don't have to hide around me, Bakura. You still love him, don't you?"

He gazed at the wedding, at all the people who sat there watching it, feeling nothing other than happiness, and at perfect, beautiful Marik, who must be having the greatest time of his entire life. Then there was him, all alone and secluded, and Isis, the only person who might even begin to understand what he was going through.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do. It's fucking pathetic," He snarled, for the first time letting his mask slip. He didn't want to be here, he didn't want to smile and act like he was enjoying himself. His fists were burning and he wanted to punch something, and then get a drink and forget that he'd ever been so idiotic and selfless in the first place.

"No, no it's not, Bakura!" Isis insisted. She grabbed a hold of his arm and forced him to look at her. "It's not. You can't control the way you feel. Marik's really lucky to have you."

"Yeah, too bad he doesn't realize that."

That was the true him talking, the selfish him who had wanted to tell Marik that if he felt like he was making a mistake, then damn, of course he was! The him who had dreamt foolish fantasies of coming here and whisking Marik away and keeping him by his side forever, like a dragon guarding some magnificent treasure. That him was showing now, and he knew that if he didn't get himself under wraps soon, his resolve would break down, and he'd do something stupid and hurt Marik. So he took his arm away from Isis and crossed it in front of himself, and forced his lips to move back into another sly smile. No one would even know that it wasn't true.

"Sorry, that's just me being bitter. I'm happy for him, really, I am."

"This is the last we'll hear from you, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it probably is. I hadn't planned on seeing him again, but he needed my help, so here I am. But this is the last time. I can't stay here and keep allowing myself to be hung up on him. He's obviously never going to feel the same way about me, so it's time for me to go. From here on out, he'll just have to figure out how to handle things on his own," Bakura said.

"He'll be sad. He may not love you, but he really did miss you," Isis remarked softly.

"He'll get over it."

They were both focusing on the ceremony now. It was nearing its end. They were exchanging the rings now. Bakura watched as Marik leant in and kissed Mai, sealing the deal and ending it all. He pushed himself off the wall, and started to walk away.

"Well, I've got to go now. Don't want to rain on anyone's parade even more than I already have. You tell Marik I said bye," He said, waving behind him to Isis.

"Thank you again, Bakura, and I'm sorry for your luck."

He waved it off. Everyone was always sorry, yattata, yattata. Didn't change anything anyways. Marik was married now; he had watched him kiss Mai. Nothing more for him to hope for, so he would just leave.

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><p>So that's that. Sorry for the angst, and for the WTF-why-is-Marik-straight? stuff. Since I actually really like this one, I MIGHT make another one of these oneshots related to it, but that's a big might. Not really sure of anything at this point. So all right, please review, and thank you!<p> 


	3. Gotta Have My Bowl, Gotta Have Cereal

Hello again everybody! Not much to say here except that the humor is back! And that this is the longest chapter so far… I told myself, "Keep them short and simple, Devon!" but apparently, I am unable to do so. They keep increasing in size with each one, and chapter five is shaping up to be an actual fanfic! Ahh, what am I doing to myself?

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh, nor the song "Friday" by Rebecca Black. Both are being used for the purpose of entertainment, and entertainment only. I make no money!

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><p>Chapter Three: Gotta Have my Bowl, Gotta Have Cereal<p>

"Bakura! What is that brat crying about _now_?"

"How should _I_ know?"

"Well get him to shut up! He's ruining everything! I can't do any evil planning when his screeching is making it impossible to even _think_!"

"Well _you're_ the one who kidnapped him! _You_ figure out how to make him shut his trap! Or I swear, I_ will_ kill him!"

Most people would be scared if they had been taken away from their only family and kidnapped by two of the most nefarious villains out there. For Mokuba Kaiba, it was almost a hobby. He couldn't even begin to count on his fingers and toes the number of times he'd been kidnapped, even if he'd had multiple sets to count with. All he knew was that it was one large number. He thought that he must have been born with some sign invisible to all but him that just _begged _others to kidnap him and hold him for ransom.

There had once been a time where Mokuba had been frightened by his very frequent kidnappings. Some time around… maybe the twelfth? when he'd been old enough to realize that he should be _worried_ whenever a random stranger took him to some place he was unfamiliar with. The terror that he had felt was short lived. Sooner rather than later, he came to an understanding of how the world worked. Seto Kaiba had inherited all the power, money, and influence that their foster father had held, and then multiplied it by two. Seto Kaiba was almost untouchable. Mokuba Kaiba was not. If someone wanted to hurt Seto, then the way to do it was through Mokuba. And so he was kidnapped, and so Seto would eventually come to rescue him, sometime with the help of Yuugi and his friends. And then he would go home, and wait for it to happen again in a week. Mokuba had learned this early on in life. That was why he wasn't worried in the slightest right now. Seto would be coming any minute, he was sure.

So until he showed up, Mokuba planned on enjoying himself. That usually translated to annoying his captors so much that they finally gave in to his demands and handed him whatever he wanted. In this instance, it was cereal. He'd been planning on having a bowl this morning, but then he'd been kidnapped, so go figure. He still wasn't quite sure how they'd gotten past all of the security measures Seto had set up around the house to prevent this very thing from happening. Oh well. At least it was a learning experience.

"I _told_ you already, I want a bowl of cereal!" Mokuba whined. Both villains ceased their own bickering to look at the child in their midst. The murderous looks both wore might have frightened him if he hadn't already seen the exact same expression on the face of a hundred others.

"Cereal?" Marik asked slowly. His brow furrowed, and he ran a hand through golden hair.

"You don't know what it is, do you?" Bakura asked, exasperated. From the look on his face, this scene probably happened a million times a day.

"No! I know what it is!" Marik shot back defensively.

"Oh really? Then how about you tell me?" Bakura questioned.

"Well, it's obviously some form of children's toy!" The blonde announced. The other two occupants of the room said nothing, aside from Mokuba's giggling, and sooner rather than later, understanding dawned on the Egyptian villain's face.

"Oh _yes_ Marik, the kid wants a bowl full of children's _toys_," Bakura snarled sarcastically. Mokuba almost winced at the harsh reply. Even he was not used to such dripping levels of venom. Marik apparently was, for he shot back with just as much bite.

"And how should_ I_ know that he doesn't?"

"Because if youknew what cereal was, then you'd know that it is certainly _not_ a child's toy!"

"Well I'm _so sorry_ that my father locked me up in a damn _tomb_ for the majority of my life, and I'm just _a little bit_ unsure of the silly trivialities that kids nowadays like to play with!"

"Oh, so now you're using that as an _excuse_?"

"It's not an excuse! It's a valid reason!"

"No, it's _not_! You didn't know what it was to begin with!"

"Yes, and like I said-!"

"Guys!" Mokuba yelled. "I just want some cereal!" Both villains turned from their own glaring match and directed their fiery gazes at Mokuba. He stood strong. He certainly wasn't going to be intimidated by these two, especially not when they were too busy flirting with each other to pay him any mind.

"Fine! If it'll get you to shut up," Marik muttered darkly. "Bakura! Go out and get some cereal for the brat!"

"I'm not doing it. He's your problem," Bakura scoffed, crossing his arms.

"Fine!" Marik spat. "Just tell me what cereal is, and _I'll_ go get it."

Mokuba watched, laughing at the entire spectacle, as Bakura did just that. It was much harder explaining the concept of cereal to Marik than he'd ever thought it would be. By the time Marik finally had it down and left, Bakura was in a very bad mood. Mokuba thought about voicing another demand, but one look from the pale teen, and he thought that maybe this wasn't the time for that.

The strange thing about this entire scenario, Mokuba thought, was that no one had really tried talking to him yet. Normally, whenever he was kidnapped, his kidnappers had something in mind that they needed him for. Whether it was getting information about Seto, or trying to get into the KaibaCorp building to cause havoc inside, they still needed Mokuba for _something_, and were usually very vocal about just what it was. The only time that Bakura and Marik had talked to him thus far was to yell about his complaining for cereal. It was really strange just sitting here silently.

"So," Mokuba started, trying to begin a conversation. "You and Marik, huh?" Yeah, all that earned him was another icy glare. Well, back to silence then…

"What of it?"

"Well there's nothing wrong with it!" Mokuba said hurriedly, suddenly not liking the turn this conversation was taking. All right, so talking about his captor's personal life was_ not_ okay. If possible, Bakura's glower had increased exponentially on the icy cold scale. "I mean, I think Seto really likes Yuugi, even though he's always complaining about him cheating during their duels and saying that he's gonna beat him one day, but he really doesn't mind him that much, and I don't have a problem with it at all, so—"

"What?"

That one word effectively shut up Mokuba's rambling. And now, now he was starting to feel afraid. He should have just sat there quietly, because now Bakura was standing up and walking over to Mokuba with a strange look on his face. It certainly wasn't a happy one, but he didn't look as angry as Mokuba would have expected, and was that a hint of amusement dancing around his lips? Maybe he wouldn't be killed after all.

"Well, I didn't mean to make you angry, and I don't care at all or anything if you are—"

"Will you just get to the point?" Bakura drawled, now sounding bored.

"Well um… you and Marik are um… you're together, aren't you?" Mokuba asked. He shut his eyes quickly, thinking that maybe if he didn't see the teen in front raising his hands to throttle him, it wouldn't hurt so much. Instead, he heard a harsh, barkish laughter coming from the other, surprisingly rough for such a slender looking man.

"You think we're gay? Is that it?" Bakura questioned with a queer smirk on his face.

"Yes…?"

"And?" The pale teen asked, obviously looking for more. Mokuba's face flushed. He wanted an explanation. Oh jeez, now he was really going to get it, wasn't he? Hopefully Seto would be coming soon. Aaaanny minute now…

"Well um… the two of you seem like good friends. Umm… when you were arguing, it didn't sound like you were really mad at each other. It sounded more like the two of you were um… flirting… and enjoying it… And umm… well… the two of you would probably uhh… umm… well, you'd be a good couple," Mokuba admitted, and squeezed his eyes shut once more.

"You think?"

"Oh yeah! Yeah, just perfect!" Mokuba gushed, thanking whatever god was out there that he still had his life. Who would have figured his dumb mouth would actually get him _out_ of trouble? Thankfully, he was saved from having to say any more by a certain blonde Egyptian villain storming back into the evil lair in a tizzy. With a large huff, he shoved the bag he carried with him against Mokuba's chest, and then stood in front of the boy with his arms crossed and wearing a glare.

"Do you even _know_ how _annoying_ it was to get that? _First_ I had to travel to a grocery store, and _then_ I had to walk through _every—damn—aisle_ trying to find where the cereal was hidden. And then I needed to pick a certain brand! _Why_ are there so many different kinds anyways? What purpose could they _all_ possibly serve?" He hissed.

Mokuba looked at the cereal in his hands. It was a generic brand of Fruit Loops. Instead of the usual toucan bird he was used to seeing, there was a weird rainbow colored zebra, advertising the cereal as Fruit Whirls. Mokuba didn't eat Fruit Loops that often to begin with, and he had certainly not ever eaten generic cereal. Even at the orphanage when he'd been younger, his caretakers had tried to make the orphans eat healthier foods, to entice prospective adopters to view their children as better catches. Now, Mokuba figured that he could just sit here and accept the Fruit Whirls, but he was a Kaiba, and when had his brother ever settled for less?

"This is generic cereal," He said. If he thought that either Bakura or Marik would understand that that meant he wasn't going to eat it, he was mistaken. Marik continued his very unthreatening glare, and Bakura stood off to the side and watched the scene unfold.

"I don't eat generic cereal. Seto always gets someone to buy me name brand. And besides, I don't like Fruit Loops. I like Cinnamon Toast Crunch," Mokuba pointed out helpfully.

"If you even so much as _hint_ at me going back to that-that place! I will decide that your life is no longer important for my evil plans, and I'll get one of my mind slaves to dispose of you," Marik said coolly, daring Mokuba to speak up again.

"But… I need a bowl."

"Bakura!" Marik barked out. "Get the brat a bowl!"

"What makes you think we have one of those? I don't use things like those for my food, and the only silverware you ever keep around are those cups for your damn ice drinks," Bakura sneered. Marik spun around to face the pale teen and huffed angrily.

"It's _hot_ in here! I can't help it that I like to stay hydrated! And maybe if you didn't eat like a savage, we could just get the brat what he wants and make him shut up already!" Marik snapped. Now Mokuba had been in the precarious hands of a great many different villains before. And consequently, he had become very adept at recognizing when one of those villains was reaching their breaking point. Marik was nearing his now. He figured that Bakura had to know that, but the other teen just kept pushing.

"You're from Egypt. You should be used to the heat. And it's much hotter down there than it is here. You probably have some weird fetish. Want me to rub you down with ice one day, Marik dear?" Bakura smirked. Mokuba's face grew just as red as Marik's, only without the added sputtering sounds the Egyptian was producing. His lilac eyes had gone wide, and his lips kept opening and closing, like he was trying to say something, but had yet been able to hardwire his brain correctly to do so. Bakura stood there grinning his wide, fool's grin, like this was nothing out of the ordinary. Mokuba was beginning to wish that someone else had kidnapped him. Preferably, someone a little more focused on the task at hand, and not their love life. These two were telling him things he did _no_t need to know! Discussing the personal lives of his captors was one thing. Now sitting here and being audience to that life unfolding before his unwitting eyes was quite another. And just_ where_ was his brother?

"You…! How _dare _you? I do_ not_ have a fetish, and I would never even want you to touch me!" Marik shrieked indignantly, sounding suspiciously like a bird with how shrill his voice was becoming.

"Oh, come off it, you git! Even the brat noticed!" Bakura snarled. He was finally moving now and becoming active, taking it upon himself to walk closer and closer to Marik.

"Noticed what?" The blonde demanded. He was still keeping up the façade of being in charge, but Mokuba could tell that he was beginning to grow unsure of whatever his partner in crime was planning next. Even the boy himself was unkowing of what was going on here. But if the two teens kept on the way they were, things were bound to get messy.

"That you want me," Bakura answered with a sly grin.

"I didn't say that!" Mokuba shouted before he could control himself. Not that either of the two were paying much attention to him. If there had ever been a time to work on escaping, it was now. The two keeping him prisoner were obviously too distracted with each other to even notice his existence. Unfortunately, Mokuba was just as caught up in whatever was going to happen next. When Marik growled and finally marched the last few steps up to Bakura and connected their lips viciously, he wished that he hadn't been.

The moment skin touched skin, and lips caressed lips, Mokuba had lowered his head and looked away with his face burning bright. He hadn't been lying when he'd said that he didn't care about things like… _that_… but he didn't think that he'd be seeing it! This was the most awful kidnapping he'd ever been on! No cereal, no bowl, and _they were making noises! _Mokuba tried covering his ears, but that didn't work nearly as well as he'd hoped it would.

"Well, I think it's apparent now that the brat needs to go."

Bakura and Marik, apparently recovered now from their little spat, were facing Mokuba with identical looks on their fiendish faces. Very smug, satisfied, and with the hint of a question: what to do next.

"Very apparent," Bakura agreed. "Why don't we just hole him up with the bimbo?" Marik pondered the suggestion for a moment, then shrugged and agreed that it was good enough. A few minutes after pulling the ever-present Sennen Rod out of his pocket and calling up a mindslave, Mokuba was taken away from the two grinning villains and stuffed into the back of a moving van for transportation. The ride was bumpy and uncomfortable, and he was sure that he'd come out of this with a lot of bruises, but Mokuba had never been happier to be treated like a sack of dirt, unceremoniously tossed around without thought. Because a couple of bruises on his body were nothing compared to the mental scars he'd be suffering after _that_ ordeal. At least Seto had the money to pay for therapy.

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><p>All right! Chapter three. Did you enjoy? My attempt at a non-AU. Technically, this totally could have fit in with the actual timeline of the anime. Mokuba gets kidnapped by Rishid, who sticks him on a helicopter and flies by Kaiba to piss him off. Then, he and Yami go and duel Marik's henchmen, and Mokuba gets stuck with Anzu, only to eventually escape and return to his brother after the duel. Soo, as long as this little scene that I've written took a very short time, and the duel was really long (and it was like four episodes! So it should have been long), this could have fit in there. Yaaaay? Ugh, it was a pain figuring that all out though. Had to search through summaries of each episode to get the timeline for this down pat XP<p>

Some references to TAS with the ice cube thing, since I was already exaggerating the amount of times Mokuba gets kidnapped like LK does… but other than that the rest is me. Oh, and there's totally a very small, teeny tiny hint at what chapter five will be about, but I doubt anyone will actually find it. I only accidentally stuck it in there myself. Either way, please review, and thank you!


	4. Seein' Everything, The Time Is Goin'

Hello again! Here we are with chapter four! Some things to mention first: This chapter is angsty! And M-rated for vague talkings about adult relations between two men. (And here I was in the last chapter saying I had no idea if I'd put anything like that in these, pfft.) Another thing to mention, and I probably should have said it before, but it slipped my mind. All of these chapters are separate oneshots! They are NOT connected unless I specifically tell you that they are! Hope that clears up some confusion! Also, don't know if it matters at all, but this is anime-based, only I totally haven't actually seen the end of Yu-Gi-Oh (stopped watching like halfway through season four), so it most definitely does not follow that at all.

So chapter four! This is by far my favorite so far X3 Which is funny, because for the longest time I had no idea what to write for it. I got a good idea for five, so I'd started working on that one before this one XP But I finally thought of something, and I love it, so here it is!

**Disclaimer:** Black-Neko-Chan does not own Yu-Gi-Oh nor the song "Friday."

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><p>Chapter Four: Seein' Everything, The Time Is Goin'<p>

It was raining. It had been doing so for the past four days, and although a more optimistic man than himself may have hoped it would let up, it hadn't. The skies had taken it upon themselves to open up wider than ever to release torrents of icy rain. A wise man would have sought shelter from the onslaught, but he remained where he was. The weather had frozen his limbs to the point where he could no longer even feel the droplets on his skin, other than a brief, tingling sensation, and the reddening of pale flesh. A fool would have at least had the sense to wear a jacket, but he adorned himself with nothing but the clothes on his back.

"You're going to catch cold at this rate."

The other male took up a stance next to him. He, the first noticed with a measure of irritancy, was dressed in a heavy brown coat, and wore a hood over his head. Brown eyes slid away from the newcomer and back to the object he'd been glaring at for the past two hours. The other was no longer deemed important.

"Will you at least say something? If you won't put on some appropriate clothing, at least let me know that you're still alive!"

"Shut up," The first muttered. Not because he cared about reassuring the other as to the nature of his health, or that he even cared that the other was worried. He did it because the voice of his companion was grating. He shattered the solitude of the moment by his very presence alone. The cacophony of his words was too much to take added on top of his intrusion.

"Will you just please go inside already? _Please_? I'm begging you!"

There had been silence for at least twenty minutes, long enough to almost allow himself to forget the other's presence completely. But then he had opened his mouth again and begun to babble more useless drivel that the first man would not listen to. The plea stayed with him, however, and for a moment he considered. He could no longer feel the cold, and although his feet had began to ache and protest all the standing he'd done thus far, he knew they could hold up for much longer than they were letting on. He would not leave because he was too weak to continue his vigil. But there was the plea. It was the begging, begging that sounded only a few inches away from distress, and that caused him to contemplate. The other begged and pleaded about as much as he did. For him to do so now meant something. And that something almost bade him to leave, and come indoors from the cold. But as his eyes slithered back to the monument in front of him, he knew that no begging would move him now.

"Bakura! Godammit, answer me!"

Marik grabbed his shoulders, harshly wrenching him away from the marker and forcing their eyes to meet. His hand rose and punched the blonde a split-second later, making the hood covering him fly off, and blond hair fly back before settling neatly around tanned skin. A moment later, it was drenched by the rain and ran like golden rivers down that same skin. Marik's head lolled forward, and he brought a hand to his reddening cheek, rubbing it slowly. A grimace adorned his mouth, but there was no surprise, just resignation.

"I'm not fucking done yet!" Bakura roared, furious. His eyes burned and his fist itched to hit the blonde again, and again, and again, and to never stop hitting him until he'd beaten that beautiful, sun-kissed face into a mushy pile of pulp and gristle, and then he would hit him again.

"Everyone else has already gone! We're the only fools still standing out here, getting drenched in the rain!" Marik yelled.

"Then leave." And he turned back around, forgetting that the other was there. The cold surged up around him and stole all the heat his body had generated from the sudden outburst, and then he was numb again, his eyes bore listless into the stone.

"I'm not leaving without you."

The declaration stood by itself in the silence, curiously detached from its owner. All the other words had faded away into the same oblivion they'd come from easily enough, because they had never really been important or mattered in the first place. Just nonsensical words stringed together, aimed at producing from him some reaction. But this string stayed put. Instead of fading away, it practically danced in front of his eyes, dragging and directing his rapt attention straight towards it.

It was a statement made completely out of character. Pregnant with concern and worry, and showing a steadfast loyalty that had never been bothered with before. Loyalty had no place in their line of work. It was eat or be eaten, and the only reason they'd ever worked together in the first place was for mutual gain. The moment the other had nothing to offer, the partnership ended. That was the way things worked between the two. Commitment wasn't for people like them. Bakura had thought Marik knew that.

Marik shuffled beside him, but he did not try and touch him again. Smart enough to have learned his lesson the first time. He did not want to be disturbed. Of all times, this was when he desired a moment to himself. On any other day he would devote himself to Marik's inanities, but this was his.

"Bakura…"

He was starting up again. The talking had whittled away to nothing, but now it was gearing up once more as Marik proved to again not grasp the importance that he be here.

"You don't understand, do you, Marik?" Bakura questioned, sarcasm evident on his tongue. He knew that Marik did not. But still he asked the question, breaking the silence he himself desired. Marik was visibly surprised to hear his companion speak. His head raised up, violet eyes showing the confusion that Bakura had known would be evident.

"Wha…? No, no, I don't," Marik said. His lips decided on a frown, and his body turned involuntarily toward his sopping companion. "I don't understand why you'd want to mourn him. You wanted him dead, after all. So what's there to remain here for?"

He sounded cocky, so sure of himself, as he said the words, and that infuriated Bakura. His mouth twitched and then formed a snarl, and his hands bunched together at his side. Marik was ignorant, so stupid. He'd wanted him dead too, and he didn't even understand. He didn't see it the way Bakura did, but yet he sounded so damn sure of himself, like he knew exactly what he was saying when he told Bakura to come inside.

"I'm not mourning him! I'm mourning what I've lost," Bakura spat. Marik remained silent, sensing that the other man was not yet done. The rain continued to fall just as hard now as it had three hours ago, when he'd first shown up in front of the marker. The gray clouds overheard turned the graveyard a darker shade of dismal monochrome. Even the flowers that had been placed on the tomb were as sodden as the two visitors, the rain drowning them all without discrimination. The place was deserted due to the weather, even though the scent of fresh dirt still pervaded the air.

"Cancer. Who'd have thought something like that would have finally shut him up for good?" Bakura muttered, smiling at the new grave sardonically. He kicked the bouquet of flowers off the mound of dirt with sporadic viciousness, and watched as they flew away from one another. The paper wrappings landed in a patch of wet grass, but all the flowers fluttered prettily down into a large puddle, and sank to the bottom to decay in the mud.

"But it did!" He continued, as if he'd never stopped. "It fucking did, and now there's nothing left for me here. Nothing to fucking do but exist. Same damn thing I've been doing for thousands of years. At least before I had a goal in mind. Now there's just wet dirt, and a rotting carcass."

"And what's wrong with that? Now there's nothing to hold you back, or tie you down. The world didn't all of a sudden shut down and leave you, Bakura. Without him, you can do whatever the hell you want," Marik argued. A bit of fire had entered his voice, and Bakura broke away from the flowers to see him staring at the grave. His soft lips were twisted into a half-grimace, and his eyes sparkled diamond hard.

"You're an idiot," Bakura scoffed, turning away. For a moment, he'd almost thought that Marik had understood. That he'd been at least close to the same revelation he'd had, that he could sense that now, everything was wrong. But the blonde was just as oblivious now as he was before. Maybe to him, it felt like a weight had been lifted quite literally off his back, but he was just a mortal. He hadn't lived for as long as the spirit had, or hated as much as he. He could easily go on with his life, maybe do something to finally make his brother and sister proud of him instead of squandering through it all beside his old partner.

"What am I supposed to do, now that he's gone? He was my whole reason for being here! There wasn't a day that went by when I didn't think of him, and how I wanted to kill him! And now I can't do that! I can't do anything anymore!" The pale teen screamed.

"Bakura—" Marik started, becoming active. His hands rose to perhaps restrain his companion again, but he didn't get far. Bakura shot away from the other angrily, and continued his outburst.

"I wanted to kill him! My entire life, I've wanted to kill him! He destroyed my home and killed all of my family and friends! He killed me! The only thing I lived for was to get my revenge and kill him, and now I can't, because he had to be so—fucking—selfless! and allow himself to die alongside the prat! Even the damn Sennen Items don't matter anymore! I only fucking wanted them so I could finally beat him and take my revenge!" He snarled. He was on a role now, pacing back and forth, wringing his hands together to distract himself from placing them around Marik's neck and snapping it, so great was his anger.

"Oh, I'd had a great plan! I was going to win them all and send their owners to the Shadow Realm to _rot_. And then when I had all but the damn Puzzle, I'd challenge him and use all the powers at my disposal to beat him. But I'd wait to kill him. I'd let him watch as I took over this place and killed his friends one by one in front of him, while he could only stand there helpless and listen to their screams and begs. And then I'd keep him there for a few hundred years, let him slowly break and realize that he'll never again beat me. Let the pain he feels and the despair sink in, the same way it sank in to me. And then I'd kill him.

"But I can't do that anymore, can I, Marik?" He questioned sarcastically, finally ceasing his pacing motions. He stood in front of the grave once more and glared at it with all the hatred his dead heart could muster. "I can't do anything anymore, because he went and died! He had to kick me down and beat me again by doing the very thing I've been wanting him to do for years, only he kept me from accomplishing it! And you're going to tell me that there's still something left to do in this blasted place? Fuck you, Marik!" He raged. "And fuck him too!"

He lashed out at the gravestone behind him and punched it squarely in the middle. The stone was new and did not give in the slightest. The blood from his freshly-split knuckles mixed with the pouring rain and streamed down the letters engraved on the stone. The "G," "I," and "M" ran red for a few seconds before the rain washed it away. Bakura's shoulders heaved as he breathed raggedly. He heard Marik shuffle behind him, and then a tanned hand was against his and pulling him away from the grave.

He let himself be touched, didn't fight against it this time. His anger and energy fell back to a dormant slumber, and he let his hate seep through his eyes as he stared unmoving at the headstone. His body was suddenly enveloped in warmth as Marik pulled him to his chest. The coat that the other man wore was taken off and placed around Bakura's own skinny frame. Almost right away, with the rain no longer numbing his skin to the chill, Bakura felt just how cold he was. His body trembled, and his legs felt very weak now. He sneezed, and raised his arms to wrap around himself for more warmth. Ryou's body was unable to handle such temperatures. The only thing he'd accomplished in the length of time he'd been outside was to give himself a bad cold.

"Bakura, let's go inside Bakura. Let's get out of the cold, and get you changed into some new clothes. You're soaking wet. Come on Bakura, come on. There's nothing else to do here. Let's go," Marik was saying somewhere above his ear. The blonde's teeth chattered noisily as the rain hurriedly fell to soak him as well.

"What's the point? We're villains, Marik. There's nothing for us to do now. We were never going to win, or live grand, purposeful lives. Our role in the scheme of things is meaningless. He gets to die the hero's death, remaining beside the one he cared about right up until the very end. When he was buried, everyone came to grieve, and then they went to their warm houses and stopped mourning because they knew that he had wanted to go this way, and that he was happy. You'll live your life right up until you die and decay in the earth, and no one will be there to see you pass. And once Ryou dies, I'll be stuck in the Ring to continue my parasitic existence. Only even that no longer matters. We've been reduced to fragmented half-visions that no one can bother to see quite clearly. So what does it matter, Marik? What does it even matter anymore?" He asked quietly. And Marik paused in his tugging to get the spirit someplace warm, out of the rain and cold. He was finally seeing it now, wasn't he? Because that was what it came down to. With the death of the king, they became useless and unnecessary. Same thing they'd always been from the beginning, only now they would be forgotten as well. Insult to injury. But that was the way of it.

"That's not true," Marik argued, although Bakura could tell from his voice that his heart was no longer in it. Not like when he'd been fighting to get Bakura to listen to him. "We can still be the villains. We can still cause havoc and kill and maim. There's nothing to stop us from doing that."

"Of course. Dignity, who needs it?" Bakura scoffed, drawing himself into the coat tighter.

"I'm serious, Bakura! It doesn't have to be that way!"

"But it will. It will. There's no point to it all anymore. Why rage when there's no longer a king to rage against? Half the excitement of it all was in the lose, and coming up with a new plan to succeed in the future. So you can do all of the things you said if you want, but you won't. Neither will I. It's all meaningless now. His final victory. I bet he's laughing his ass off," He said, with another glance to the solitary tombstone. Marik's arms wrapped around him tighter, trembling so much now that Bakura could feel them through the large coat. He thought the Egyptian might have another argument, but he'd already given up. With another call of his name, he led the paler man away from the grave and to his car.

Marik had traded in the motorcycle for a more reliable mode of transportation years ago. He'd said that the bike was for those younger than him. It was the old, dilapidated black car that Bakura was led to, and helped inside. He sat shivering in the passenger seat as Marik fiddled with the engine, trying to get it to start. There was a hole in the worn leather seat by his right thigh, and to him it looked like a yawning, gaping mouth. He watched as the water from his jeans streamed into it, turning the stuffing a darker mustard yellow.

Marik got the engine started and took a seat with a wet flop. For a short bit, he sat with his head bent back against the seat. His blonde hair would had fluttered nicely down behind him had it not been stuck to his forehead and cheeks. Water still dripped from it, and Bakura found himself distracted by a droplet as it rolled down smooth, tanned skin. Then Marik looked to him, and he raised his eyes to meet lilac. The man looked about ready to speak, but a frown came over his face, and he redirected his gaze to the window and pulled out of the parking lot.

"I'm taking you back to my house. If I drop you off by yourself, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if you marched your way back up here," Marik said. Bakura nodded half-heartedly, having expected such an outcome already. Today was a different day for the both of them, and for Marik, that meant being strangely companionable when before he wouldn't have minded so much. Or at least not acted on it.

Bakura watched the rain through the window of the car. It turned the whole world wet and dreary, and when his breathe fogged up the glass enough that it made seeing impossible, he thought that the view hadn't changed all that much anyways. He continued to stare. He could sense that Marik was uncomfortable with the silence, but the blonde acted like he were much too engaged in driving back to his place to make petty conversation.

"You're right, Bakura."

He spoke when they'd reached his shabby apartment, not even waiting until the both of them had taken off their shoes and gotten out of their wet clothing. Marik stood there, dripping onto the carpet of his floor, and he proclaimed that Bakura was right.

"You're right. I won't do any of the things that I said. But the world didn't just end. And we haven't become meaningless. We're still here. We still exist," Marik said, looking Bakura straight in the eye. He was attempting to say something, to convey some emotion that he either could not, or would not put into words. He was struggling, struggling because he knew he didn't get it right, and maybe, because he knew it didn't matter either way. Because it didn't. And if he didn't know that, then Marik was more of a fool than Bakura thought.

Marik gave up on his words, decided to explain himself in the only way he really knew how. He kissed Bakura straight on the lips, and as his mouth moved desperately eager against the paler one's, Bakura almost wanted to laugh. But his tongue was occupied now, and his thoughts were for the time being making themselves scarce as wet clothes were pulled off and left to dampen the carpet.

It was fumbling, it was awkward, and neither knew what they were doing. It was wet and it was painful, and the only thing Bakura could put into it was hate, hate, because it was the only thing he had felt for so long, and now it really was the only thing he could feel.

There had been a time when Marik was beautiful to him, when he'd enjoyed his presence so much that he almost went an entire day without feeling that broiling hatred in his pit. There'd been a time when he'd secretly wanted nothing more than to spend the day planning the Pharaoh's demise with the Egyptian, and dreamt about spending the night with him in the way they finally were now. There'd been a time when he'd felt all those foreign emotions that hadn't been hatred bubbling inside of him, completely new and yet oddly familiar all at once, though he hadn't experienced them in centuries. There'd been a time when he almost felt saved. But that was all foolish, silly stuff, the kind of thing someone like Ryou would dream about and deserve. All he felt now was cold, and his hatred. He'd gotten one thing he had longed for, and it didn't even matter because the end he'd been chasing was now lost to him forever. Bakura found it hilarious. While the two of them fumbled in the dark, while Marik moaned and pressed his body fervently against Bakura's own, the only thing the white-haired man could think to do was laugh.

Marik collapsed beside him, sweat now replacing the water, but still as equally drenched. He sighed and closed his eyes, but it was not the sigh of a well-sated man coming from post-coitus. Blood speckled the expanse of sheets between them, and Bakura imagined that were he to have actually seen Marik's face during the entire thing, the blonde would have worn a grimace. As it were, all he'd concentrated on was blonde hair and tanned skin, but in the ever-present recollection of gravestones and flowers, those things hadn't stood a chance at remaining in his memory.

"Bakura…"

He wondered, absently, if Marik felt better or worse for having displayed himself like that? Had he thought that if he opened himself up and gave into his desires, he would somehow win Bakura's heart over, instead of see it continue to long for those that had died? Had Marik thought that at once, he would realize there was no point in hating what could no longer exist to be hated, and remain in the blonde's bed, beside him, until his life were up? Had he thought these things? Were they what prompted him to act the way he did?

"Bakura I… I don't… What I want to say is that… I don't like seeing you that way, and you're right about everything but I don't… I don't like hearing you say those things and I… fuck!"

If they were, then he really was an idiot, wasn't he? Marik should have realized by now, if he'd ever known him at all, that his heart had always remained alive but for one person, and one person only. Maybe at some time it had threatened to feel for another, but when the one he lusted revenge over died, Bakura's heart gave up and died as well. Melodramatic, but true enough, being put into words. And if Marik had thought that maybe he could change this, well that just made it even more so.

"Damn it Bakura, what I want to say is that I love you!"

There was that urge to laugh again, rising, bubbling up, threatening to overcome him. How would Marik react to that, he wondered derisively. He remained lying on his back, staring at the plaster peeling off the ceiling, but from the corner of his eye he could see Marik sitting up, struggling with some nonsensical words that were just as useless now as when he'd spoke them at the graveyard. He hadn't been listening then, either.

"Well, say something at least!"

"What?"

That Marik was a fool? That he would never have gotten what he wanted from the beginning? Somehow, Bakura felt like the Egyptian knew it all already.

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><p>Kay, that's it! Sorry if it was confusing at all. If you've got a question, just ask away! Hope you liked it! Please review, and thank you!<p> 


	5. Tickin' On And On, Everybody's Rushin'

Hello everyone. Chapter five took a bit longer to get online because I totally hadn't succeeded in finishing it yesterday. If you'll notice, this monster is about twice as long as all of the other chapters combined. That's right. Twice as long. I officially hate this chapter. But I'll talk more about that at the end. For now, just read on.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or Rebecca Black's "Friday."

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><p>Chapter Five: Tickin' On And On, Everybody's Rushin'<p>

Finger on the trigger. Seconds passed like molasses as the entire world around him slowed down to a halt. He took in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then released. Almost time now. The rustle in the bushes was settling, starting to get comfortable and feel safe. But not for long. He had his sights set and he would not be deterred from his prey. Not this time. This time, nothing would mess him up. With another deep breath of air, he squeezed the trigger, and released the bullet.

"What the _fuck?_"

Bakura jumped down from the tree limb he'd been hiding out in and quickly cast his BB gun into the bushes beside him. He hadn't thought for a second that there'd be a person in those bushes. He'd been figuring on a squirrel or something, some harmless animal he could shoot at without getting in trouble. Again. Oh boy, would his brother be _pissed._

Bakura's initial thoughts was to run away from whoever he'd shot, then come back later and collect the gun. No one would know it had been him doing the damage, and he'd live to shoot another day. But that idea was quickly dismissed, because Bakura was _not_ a pansy. If he'd shot some kid, then he'd march right up to the kid and tell him that he'd done it! And then threaten him with death if he decided to tell anyone. So with that foolproof plan in mind, Bakura's lips morphed into a casual, laidback smirk, and he walked up to the bush that the agitated voice had come from.

However, when Bakura finally reached the bush and had parted it, he didn't see anyone. No animal, and certainly no little kid. He frowned and bent over to pick up his bullet. The moment he did so, he felt a sharp pain at the top of his head.

"Ow!" He shouted, standing up immediately. He spun around, trying to see what had hurt him, but the only thing there was a yellow bird with a funky crest of black feathers atop its head. It was flittering around his head furiously, and although it was only a bird, Bakura could have sworn that there was something about it that made it appear very pissed off.

"So you're the one who shot at me! Asshole!" The bird snapped, and without another moment's hesitation, it dove back at his head and pecked him.

"Ow!" Bakura cried out again. He waved the bird away from his head, and then stared at it curiously.

"Did you just talk?" He questioned, feeling like an idiot for even asking. Of course the bird didn't talk. It must have been something else, because there's no way that an animal could speak. That didn't happen in real life.

"Of course I talked," The bird scoffed, and Bakura thought he saw it's eye roll.

"How so? Last I checked, animals didn't go around speaking," Bakura said.

"Well, by using those brilliant deduction skills, one would come to the conclusion that I'm obviously not some filthy animal," The bird spoke, managing to sound just as condescending as any human ever could.

"Then what are you?"

"Human, duh!" The bird chirped angrily, like the answer should have been obvious.

"Could have fooled me," Bakura sniggered. The situation was beginning to amuse him. He was actually standing here, talking to a bird with an attitude. The same one he had hit with his BB gun. At least it hadn't been a little kid. This thing couldn't get him in any sort of trouble.

"I know what I look like, so wipe that smirk off your face! My sister turned me into this thing! She said it was because I was being selfish," The bird spat, disgust apparent in his voice.

"Well, that's a… very interesting story, but I think I'll be off now. I have a sibling of my own to get back to, so have fun flying around, or doing whatever it is you do as a bird," Bakura said. He walked to the bush he'd hidden his gun in and pulled it out, brushing some stray dirt off it. He yelped as the bird pulled on his hair, just as he was about to walk away and forget like the entire conversation hadn't taken place.

"I don't fucking thing so! You're not getting away that easily! You're the first person who's actually bothered to listen to me without rushing away, and now you're going to help me!" The bird shrieked.

"No I'm not!" Bakura argued. "I don't help people! I especially don't help stupid little birds! Go help yourself!"

"I would if I could, but I'm a little stuck here! I need to get back to my sister and demand that she return me to my body!"

"Then go do it yourself!" Bakura spat. The bird was strong, that was damn sure. It was still pulling on his hair, and he felt like any minute now the strands would pull free from his scalp. It was fast, too. No matter how much he waved his hands and tried to smack it away, it always seemed to escape at the last second.

"I can't! She said she would only turn me back once I learned how to stop being selfish! So I need someone to come with me and tell her that I have!" The bird insisted.

"Fine! I'll do it, just let go of my hair!" Bakura yelled. Apparently satisfied, the small yellow bird let go of the white strands and perched atop Bakura's shoulder, like he thought he were a parrot or something.

"Good. My name is Marik Ishtar. Get back onto the main street, and I'll tell you how to get to my house from there," The bird said. Bakura frowned, not liking that attitude one bit. If this was the way this Marik person always acted, then it was no wonder his sister had turned him into a bird. Could have done a better job though, Bakura thought, snorting. He was still able to yap, after all.

"What's to keep me from just heading back to my house?" The teen in the human body questioned.

"If you want to keep all of your precious hair, you'll do as I say," Marik said smugly. Bakura grumbled silently to himself, blasting whoever had decided it would be fun to make him run into this pest. Whoever would have thought Ryou would be right when he told him that he should leave the animals in the park alone? Now he was stuck with this boy-turned-bird, and on a mission to return him to his human body. Well this was a great way to spend his weekend.

Still complaining quietly about his luck, Bakura walked as quickly as he could without breaking out into a sprint to get to Marik's house. There were a few passerbys on the sidewalk who looked at him strangely as they caught snatches of Marik's directions, but no one cared enough to stop and make a point to question it. He learned from the small bird's rambling that he'd woken up in the park like this about a week ago. He remembered his sister—Isis—yelling at him that he never did anything for anybody but himself, but that was a daily occurrence, so he hadn't thought much about it at first. He'd been much more concerned about how he'd suddenly become a bird. About a day after Marik was first turned into a bird, his sister herself came to visit him, and she told him there that she caused his current form.

"'You need to learn to stop being selfish. There are more people in this world than just yourself, Marik, and they are every bit as important as you. Once you learn this, I'll turn you back into a human. Until then, you can stay here and think and care about only yourself.' That's what she told me, and then she just left! She didn't say what I was supposed to do, or how I was supposed to take care of myself. I don't even know what kind of bird I am!" Marik chirruped angrily, his feathers ruffling at his side in an agitated manner. Bakura was almost inclined to feel bad for him. Or at least he might have been, had Marik not been forcing him to solve this little dispute between himself and his sister. He had begun to reexamine just how lucky he was to have Ryou as his brother after hearing about the magic-using Isis. Ryou never complained about how selfish and lazy _he_ was, or at least not enough that Bakura felt motivated to actually listen to the boy. It seemed like Marik just got stuck with the wrong sibling.

Eventually the two reached the Ishtar household. It was a nice enough looking place, decently sized, too, and with many various colored plants decorating the front of the lawn, interspersed with a few small trees and shrubs. Marik and his family were probably a bit better off than he and Ryou were, Bakura realized with a frown. Marik was hopping on his shoulder, beginning to become impatient now that he was so close to his body. With a huff, Bakura walked up to the front door and knocked harshly. This had better work. He had better things to do with his life than waste time catering to the needs of a tiny bird.

A tanned foreign woman with long ebony locks decorated in gold ornaments opened the door. Bakura stood there and stared for a moment, a bit amazed by her beauty. Her blue eyes traveled across the pale teen's face, then down to the yellow bird that was hopping on his shoulder. Her eyes narrowed then and she sighed, like she'd been expecting to see him sooner or later.

"Marik," She greeted.

"Isis," Marik replied back. His facial features didn't change at all, but Bakura could hear the frown in his voice. The woman turned from Marik the bird with another sigh, and instead focused her sea blue eyes on Bakura. He gulped, and flushed a bit before getting himself back under control.

"I'm sorry about my brother bringing you here. I had a feeling that he would try to get out of this the easy way, but I had hoped that he would learn something about why I put him in that form, and find out how to escape it by himself. I see that once again, I was mistaken. I apologize again for the time you wasted bringing him here, and for whatever he told you, but there is nothing you can do to help him. This is something he needs to learn by himself," Isis said. She didn't exactly look apologetic, and at any other time point in time, Bakura would have been very angry to hear that he'd wasted his time for no reason, but he couldn't quite bring himself to yell in front of such a beautiful lady. Marik, on the other hand, had no qualms with that.

"What the hell? You told me that once I learn how to stop being selfish, you'd turn me back into a human! You can't go back on your word now, Isis!" The bird screeched. Bakura winced at the high-pitched noise occurring so close to his ear, and waved the bird away. He was tiny, but he sure could yell. Bakura would have hated to meet Marik while he was a human.

"That is correct. Once you learn how to stop being selfish, I will turn you back. However, the stunt that you pulled just now shows that you have learned nothing so far. You found this man and told forced him to help you out, did you not? The only thing you are showing here is your impatience, and that the only person you care for is yourself," Isis explained, shaking her head. "You can bring me all the people you want, Marik, but until you have actually learned your lesson, you will not change back. I'm sorry." And without another word, she closed the door and disappeared back into the house.

Bakura watched with no small measure of amusement as Marik the bird went nuclear and flew straight up to the door and began to madly peck it. If he weren't so obviously yellow and small, he would have sounded like a woodpecker with how furiously he was going at it. But other than chipping away some paint, the door was not budging. Not giving up in the least, Marik then flew around the house, followed slowly by a chuckling Bakura, and began to peck at windows and walls, and anything that looked the least bit flimsy. It was a good half hour until he finally let it go and gave up, settling back on Bakura's shoulder. From the way the bird's small body seemed to sag, he'd lost the energy to keep going on at the pace that he was.

"Well that was useless," Bakura said cheerfully as he began to walk away from the house.

"Shut up. I would have gotten in. I just get tired in this body faster than usual," The bird tweeted indignantly. Bakura just sneered and laughed. Marik huffed his feathers up and yanked on a strand of hair, making the pale teen yelp. Then he unfolded his wings and flew up to Bakura's mane of white hair and settled himself down in it.

"What are you doing? Get out of my hair!" Bakura snarled. He tried to pick the bird up, but he was rewarded with a peck, and withdrew his hand quickly.

"I'm making myself a nest. I'm tired, and it's much nicer up here than on your bony shoulder. I don't even have to do much to fix it up," Marik smirked. Or, smirked as much as he could as a bird.

"Get out! We're going to be at the park in a minute anyways!" Bakura hissed. Instead of the sarcastic comment he was expecting to hear from the other male, the only thing that came from the top of his head was silence. He felt Marik fidgeting around in his hair, but he said nothing more in response to that. So, shrugging to himself, Bakura kept walking. In only a few minutes, he'd reached the park.

He'd stopped at the same place he found Marik. The tree he'd been shooting from, and the bush he'd hidden his BB gun in were to his right. The bushes were he'd shot Marik were in front of him. All that he needed to do was get rid of the bird, and then he could return to his house and pester Ryou all day long.

"Well we're here," Bakura said, hoping that would motivate the bird to leave, as he had yet to do so. He felt Marik fidget in his hair again, but he still remained in the same spot.

"Come on, we're here. You need to get out of my hair now and leave," The human teen repeated again. The bird shuffled once more, and then a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sigh came from his mouth. Err, beak.

"Ahh… um… Well this is awkward, but could I just stay with you?" The bird questioned. Bakura didn't respond to the question, mainly because he was surprised and completely unaware of where this had come from. Marik took the lack of response to be a bad thing, and hurriedly rushed on to explain himself.

"It's just that I hate staying here in the park! The dogs all like to chase me because I don't hear them in time to run away, and the squirrels yell at me whenever I perch in their trees! Plus it's cold, and lonely, and dark, and eating bugs and worms and searching for berries is the worst possible thing any person could do! All the other birds get to the food before me, and I'm constantly stuck trying to scrap the dead, fried worms off the pavement! I haven't eaten an actual meal in two days!" Marik complained. Bakura, much to the other's chagrin, had burst into laughter the moment the bird had began his tirade of his many woes and sufferings. This was greatly unappreciated by the other teen, and he yanked harshly at Bakura's hair, making him yelp and sober up.

"Why should I let you stay with me? There's absolutely nothing for me to gain out of this partnership, except a headache and a lot of explaining to do to my brother. And I do believe that your sister told you the entire point of this adventure was for you to learn to stop being selfish. I must say, you're doing quite the opposite once again," Bakura grinned maliciously.

"Then I'll do the explaining! And I won't ask you to help me any more! I just can't stay here in the park any more! Come on, you'll let pretty old me stay with you, won't you? You won't even know I'm there!" Marik pleaded from atop his head.

"I can easily say no to you."

"Come on! I need somewhere to stay! I need to stay with you!"

"How about you say please, and maybe then I'll think about it," Bakura scoffed, rolling his eyes. He figured with the haughty, holier-than-thou attitude the bird had, he wouldn't say it in a million years. Surprise surprise, Marik apparently was desperate, for he sucked up and spoke the words in the most humble voice he could manage. Leaving Bakura with no choice but to either let the bird stay, or look like an asshole. And, strangely enough, while he'd normally have no problem with proving to be a jerk to some person, he didn't want Marik to think badly of him.

And so this was how he ended up bringing a tiny yellow bird with an attitude problem home to Ryou.

00000

"He's a yellow tit!"

Ryou had taken Marik the talking bird much better than Bakura had. Bakura had introduced the two, and true to his word, Marik had flown down from his perch atop Bakura's head and explained all about the evil bird-turning sister Isis himself. Ryou had seemed confused at first, but gradually he had begun to smile, and now he was beaming up at Marik like he was an old friend. And then he had announced that Marik was a tit.

"A what?" Bakura asked incredulously.

"He's a yellow tit! That's the type of bird he is! They're found in Taiwan!" Ryou announced happily. "Didn't you even wonder what breed he was? You don't see birds like that in Japan every day!"

"Well umm… thanks for that," Bakura said, unable to think of anything more intelligent. His brother, the bird watcher.

"Well one of us has to know what he's doing. I'll buy some fresh berries next time I'm out shopping. That okay with you, Marik?" Ryou questioned. Marik seemed to be just as taken aback as Bakura was, and he nodded silently. "All right then! Bakura, I'm sure you can fix something up for him to sit on, can't you? He'll need somewhere to sleep at night also!" Bakura nodded minutely and walked dumbly off to his room, a little surprised by the whole thing. Berries, perches, and a nest. Whoever knew that having a pet would be so hard? It was no wonder all the ones he'd had when he was younger had died off.

"So your name's Bakura?" Marik asked from astride his shoulder. Bakura cocked his head and looked at him.

"Oh yeah. Guess I never told you that. Well now you know," He announced. And then set about providing for his new pet and roommate.

00000

Having Marik around the house was in no ways easy. It was no wonder why his sister had cursed him in the first place. About a day after Marik had settled in, he began to show his true colors. The boy-turned-bird was possibly even more selfish and inconsiderate than Bakura himself. He couldn't do anything by himself. Getting berries from the fridge was an impossible task without fingers, as was getting fresh water. Bakura wouldn't do it for him, so that left the task to Ryou. Which wouldn't have irritated Bakura one bit, if Marik didn't complain about needing fresh supplies every five minutes, even after Ryou had just gotten him something. Not only that, but half of the day the bird was flying around the house, making messes and knocking things over (things Ryou, and even sometimes Bakura, had to pick up), and then for the other half he was sitting atop one of the brother's heads and getting rides around the house! (This irritated Bakura more than Ryou, for Marik seemed to prefer his hair because it was messier, and Ryou found the entire thing to be hilarious)

On top of all that, there was Marik himself. The bird was far more annoying than Bakura had ever thought an animal could be. A thousand times a day he found himself wondering just how bad he would have been had he still been a human. He didn't hate Isis for turning her brother into a bird (he probably would have done the same damn thing), but he really wished she could have turned him into one that didn't talk. Every morning he was woken up by Marik singing at the top of his lungs (which was surprisingly loud for his size), sometimes adding a short solo of only chirping. Apparently, Marik used to be able to sleep in late, but since becoming a bird, he woke up at the ass crack of dawn each morning with the insane urge to start singing. Go figure.

"Marik! Shut the hell up already!" Bakura hissed on one such morning. He threw his pillow at the annoying tit, smirking to himself when he heard the satisfactory sound of bird meeting soft downy fabric. Upon returning to his supine position, that smirk left his face as he realized that he'd thrown his only pillow. A second later, Marik was up and at him, flying rapidly around his face and pulling on his hair.

"Go bother Ryou, will you?" He hollered.

"I would, but _Ryou's_ not the one that just threw a pillow at me!" Marik chirped angrily. Then he stopped for a bit and settled down on Bakura's bedside table. He held his head high and seemed to sniffle a bit, like he were about to utter something of the utmost importance. "Besides. Ryou's already awake."

Almost as if the two had planned it, Ryou popped into Bakura's sacred room immediately after the words had left Marik's mouth, cheeks flushed and trying to pull on a shirt.

"Bakura! Time to get up! I've got to get going to my dance practice, and you need to get groceries! Dad's supposed to be coming home today, and I wanted to cook him something. I know you hate shopping, but I'm running late and I've got to go! The list of everything I'll need is on the kitchen counter! Okay, gotta go, bye! Thanks!" Ryou said. He finally succeeded in yanking the shirt on over his head, and after waving to his brother, had shot out the door.

"Ryou—!" Bakura called, hoping out of his bed. He ran to the front door, stumbled once and nearly brained himself on the coffee table, then threw the door open and dashed outside, only to see his brother already speeding away on his bike.

"Bye, Bakura!" He called, waving again. And then he was out of sight. Bakura remained standing in the doorway, fuming. He hated going shopping, and Ryou knew it! Running late, eh? He did that on purpose! Now he'd be stuck going to pick up groceries!

"Damn it, Ryou! You're going to pay for that!" Bakura growled.

"So we're going to the store then?" Marik asked. The bird had flown through the house and took a seat on Bakura's shoulder. The pale teen glanced at the yellow animal and scoffed, then turned back to look at the direction Ryou had gone.

"Yeah, I guess we are," He grumbled.

"Great. Although first, you might want to get dressed. I personally love the view, but the neighbors are giving you funny looks," Marik said dryly. Without another word, he spread his wings and flew back into the house, leaving Bakura alone outside, clad in nothing but his baby blue boxers. He snarled at the old couple across the street who were gaping wide-eyed at him, then marched back into the house and slammed the door behind him.

00000

After getting dressed, Bakura and his rather annoying bird companion headed out to the store. Neither he nor Ryou had a car, so the two brothers usually walked everywhere. Bakura didn't leave the house much, so the lack of transportation never really bothered him, except when it came to grocery shopping. They didn't live too far away from the store, but that distance seemed to double when walking back with hands full of plastic bags filled to the brim with perishables. Bakura thought it was torture. He had to do physical labor, walk back in the hot sun, and every time, without fail, when he went to the grocery shop, someone had to stop to ask him something. He hated talking to people, especially the idiots that spent their lives shopping and had yet to learn that the cat litter was down aisle two.

"So, Ryou's off to dance practice, huh?" Marik questioned from his usual spot astride Bakura's shoulder.

"Keep your voice down. I'd rather we didn't attract any attention," Bakura said as he stopped to growl at a young woman who seemed to be paying Marik a bit too much attention.

"Oh, no one's going to hear me! And if they do, you can just tell them I'm a parrot," Marik announced thoughtfully. As if anyone would actually believe that a tiny thing like him were a parrot. Deciding to ignore that half-baked statement, Bakura continued on down the street, glaring every now and then at someone who decided to look at him for too long.

"Ryou takes dance lessons with a girl in our grade. Anzu something-or-other. Apparently, she's rather good, and Ryou thinks it's all great fun and not girly at all," Bakura scoffed, obviously feeling quite the opposite on that opinion. "They used to meet up after school to practice, but over the summer they've been coming up with certain dates to meet up. They only meet once a week, so it normally doesn't interfere with my schedule, but neither of us were expecting our father to stop over for a visit."

"That mean he doesn't normally just stop over?" Marik asked, gleaming much more from that little statement than Bakura had thought he would, surprisingly enough. From the few days that he'd spent with the bird, Marik hadn't once struck him as the knowledgeable type. Rather, the teen seemed like some selfish, stuck-up dumb blonde.

"He's an archeologist. Most of the time he's off digging up remains of ancient civilizations, or researching bones and pots. Last I heard he was in Egypt, excavating the ancient tombs of the Pharaohs. He must have needed to come back to Domino for something, and decided to see his sons in the meantime," Bakura explained, shrugging. He didn't make it a point to talk about his father. Ryou may have cared for the man, but Bakura didn't hold much love for a person who only saw his children a handful of times a year, and only when it was convenient. Marik seemed to sense this, and decided to let the subject drop peacefully. Bakura was almost thankful for this, but as the bird apparently got bored and decided to fly in circles around his head, the pale teen was again reminded why his companion caused him so much annoyance.

Getting into the grocery store was even more difficult than normal with Marik in tow. For all of about five minutes Bakura went by unnoticed by the general population, his only irritant being the difficult task of trying to decipher the scrawled, cramped writing of Ryou's on the list. Normally, his brother's handwriting could have easily passed off for being as fancy and elegant as a woman's, but he must have been in a hurry to figure out something to make to have written as hastily and illegible as he had.

And then, because the shopping experience itself wasn't hassle enough, someone had to notice Marik. Not just any casual shopper, but a store employee. Bakura felt his disapproving gaze linger on his shoulder, where Marik had decided to perch, and then next thing the two teens knew, there was a middle-aged store manager trying to explain that birds were not allowed in the store.

"Look, I'm trying to be in and out of here as fast as I can, and you're really not helping me to accomplish that. Once I get the few things I need, I'll be out of here and then you won't have to worry about him, got it?" Bakura growled. He was exasperated by the entire thing, even though he'd only been here for a few minutes already. If this guy continued to bother him and test his patience, he would _not_ be held responsible for the consequences. Ryou should have known better than to send him off to the grocery store.

"I'm sorry sir, but I just cannot allow you to have birds in here. We strive to keep all of our products as fresh and clean as possible, and I will not tolerate such an animal in my store. He may be carrying any number of diseases with him, and I will not subject my customers to that," The man explained as politely as he could. To anyone else, it might have kept them from yelling at the man, but Bakura's temper was running low as it was, and Marik didn't take very kindly to being called "diseased."

"How dare you! I'll have you know that I bathe every single day, bird or not! I bet I'm cleaner than you on any given day!" He screeched, fluffing his feathers dramatically. Luckily enough, Bakura grabbed the small bird before he could start pecking the store manager's already sparse hair out of his head. He glared at the bird harshly, before shoving him into the bag he'd brought with him for the supplies.

"Look, I'm going to grab my things, pay, and then I'll be gone," He said quickly to the stunned man, and then walked briskly down a partially empty aisle. Marik chose that moment to pop out of the bag he'd been shoved into and landed with a huff back on Bakura's shoulder.

"The nerve of that man! Once I get my body back, I'm going to file a complaint about their horrible service! Calling a customer diseased! I'll get him fired for sure!" The headstrong bird yapped.

"Shut up already! Did you see the way everyone was looking at you? Talking birds aren't something that people see every day, Marik, and I'd rather get done with this before anyone decides to ask about you and your current predicament!" Bakura hissed silently. Marik's small beak seemed to shape itself into a frown, and the look in his small beady black eyes hardened. Bakura was becoming adapt enough at reading the bird's emotions to know he wasn't about to let the matter drop quietly. Of course.

"Well they should know! Maybe then they could tell my sister to turn me back, since _you_ didn't seem to have any idea at all what you were doing! You were too busy ogling her to even try and help me out!" He yelled. Bakura stopped in his tracks and grabbed the bird once more.

"Marik, I am going to tell you only once to _shut up_. I really don't want to hear your mouth right now, and I'm sure no one else wants to either. You're a selfish little prick, and no matter how many people you con into going up to your sister and telling her that you've changed your ways, she's never going to believe them with the way you act. You should be lucky that I haven't thrown you out of my house yet. But you keep acting the way you do, and I will without a second thought, and no amount of pleading will let you back in," He said slowly. He could feel the bird's eyes on him, and knew that Marik actually was paying attention to him and what he said. Now whether he would actually listen was another matter entirely. But if he were at all smart, he would take Bakura's warning to heart, because the bird really was pulling on his last straw at this point. He did not need to deal with his attitude.

"You wouldn't kick me out. Ryou wouldn't let you," Marik pointed out snobbishly. Bakura's mouth curled into a grin, but there were no traces of humor in it. His lips were as hard as the look in his eyes, and again, he felt Marik stop his tirade to give stare.

"You keep testing me, Marik, and we'll see if you're right or not. I can already tell you that you're not, but you keep testing me," He responded with a cold chuckle. He released Marik then, and the small animal nearly fell to the floor before he realized that his wings were freed. The two spent the rest of the trip in the store in silence with Marik flying about a foot behind him. When Ryou returned from his dance practice, he noticed the tension around the air and questioned it, but neither teens seemed willing to mention it.

00000

Their father knocked on the door right as Ryou had finished cooking the roast he'd decided on. Bakura had been (for once) all alone in his room, Marik having decided to sit somewhere else in the house. He'd heard the knock on the door and the racket of Ryou running to answer it, but he didn't bother to leave until he heard the sound of his father's voice. The man always knocked on the door when he bothered to visit (something Bakura found amusingly ironic, seeing he and Ryou lived in what was technically his house, yet the man felt the need to knock as if he were a guest), so he and his brother never knew if it were their father knocking, or a late night visitor.

The man looked exactly the same as when Bakura had last seen him about six months ago. Tanned from being in the hot sun for days on end, crinkle lines around his mouth that implied he smiled often, a twinkle in his brown eyes, hair in a ponytail, and his khaki-colored clothes still covered in dust, as if he'd just appeared in their house straight from Egypt. Were anyone to look at him and make an assumption of his character, they'd think that him a friendly man who liked to joke, who could be counted on. And they'd be right. Just not when it came down to his sons.

Ryou smiled brightly and ran to their father, who threw his arms around his youngest son in a big hug. Bakura stood off to the side, watching disinterestedly as the two laughed together. They were happy enough right now, but the evening was still young.

"Why don't you go join them in the family hug?" Bakura's eyes drifted to his left shoulder, and like he'd thought, Marik had taken up a spot atop him and was also watching the two others in the room. This was the first time they'd talked all day since the grocery store. Perhaps Marik was hoping he would just pretend their little confrontation hadn't happened. Normally, he wouldn't, but with his father here, Bakura had other things to pay attention to then continuing some little spat.

"Not my style," He replied with a sarcastic grin. A noise erupted from Marik's beak that sounded like a mix between a chuckle and a high-pitched tweet. He looked about to say more, but he was interrupted by Bakura's father gesturing for Bakura to come forward and take up a seat on the couch. Marik's brow crinkled slightly, a sure sign that he was trying to scowl at the man. That small gesture almost made Bakura's grin turn genuine.

They made casual conversation that Bakura tried his best not to partake in until Ryou directed them all to the dinner table. Then the two took a seat and waited silently until Ryou had gotten everything ready and sat down himself. Before anyone could say anything to him, Bakura began stuffing his plate full of food. Marik hopped down from his shoulder and perched atop the rim of the bowl Ryou had given him full of berries.

"Is that a yellow tit you have there, Bakura?" Their father asked as he finally noticed the small bird.

"His name is Marik!" Ryou announced happily. "Bakura found him in the park, and he's just been staying with us for the past few days until we can find some way to fix him."

"Fix him? His wing broken or something?" The man asked.

"No, he's actually a human," Bakura interjected. He put his silverware down to watch the confusion flutter across his father's face, taking a small amount of pleasure in it. Then Marik decided to ruin it by flying and placing himself right in the center of the table, so everyone's eyes were on him.

"My name is Marik Ishtar, and as Bakura said, I used to be human. My sister turned me into a bird because she said I was selfish. So now, I've been trying to figure out a way to get back to my original body," He announced, tiny chest puffing out.

"Amazing! You can talk? That's…! Well it's amazing; there are no other words for it! And you say you used to be human? Amazing! How did your sister manage to do something like this?" Bakura rolled his eyes and directed his attention back to his plate. He could tell that Marik was eating up the attention, and without a doubt the conversation would continue on the subject of the small tit for most of dinner now. Shame really. Ryou had gone all out to prepare a grand meal for everyone. He'd even remembered to take Bakura's portion of the roast out early, so it didn't cook as long as the others.

"Isis has always been able to do really weird things. My mother came from a family back in Egypt that could trace its roots back hundreds of years, to the time of the Pharaohs. She always told us that the Ishtar family had been close to the sons of Ra, and because of their loyalty, the women in her family were blessed with special powers. When she gave birth to Isis, she inherited the same powers our mother had. And that's how she turned me into this," Marik explained.

"Ahh, how fascinating! Did my sons tell you that I was doing research in Egypt on the Pharaohs? I would love to hear everything you know about them and the Ishtar family power!" Bakura's father exclaimed. Bakura himself stifled a sigh. Now Marik would never shut up. He'd been almost interested in what the small bird had been saying a moment ago, but that spark of interest had quickly died. He glanced over at his brother and noticed that he was still politely trying to act as if he were invested in the conversation. Knowing Ryou and his bleeding heart, he probably was, but Bakura knew that what the younger of the two of them really desired was for their father to pay attention to him. It was what he always wanted on these rare occasions when their father stopped over, but he never got his wish. If it weren't a human-turned-tit, it was something else. That's why Bakura had given up on the man every paying them any real attention years ago.

"Umm, father?" Ryou spoke hesitantly when the conversation came to a lull. Bakura looked up from his food to see that no one else had really even touched theirs. From the looks on both his father's face and Marik's, Bakura could tell that neither was really happy with the interruption. Of course, their father hide it much better than Marik did, but Bakura could still tell. He bet that Ryou could too.

"Yes, Ryou?" The older man asked.

"Ahh, I've been taking dance lessons with a friend of mine at school, and she says I'm beginning to get rather good at it! She convinced me to sign up for a dance recital. It's in a few days, so I thought that maybe, if you were still here, you would want to go to it," Ryou suggested shyly. From the corner of his eye, Bakura watched as the man contemplated it for a bit. He could see in Ryou's own eyes that he was hoping the answer would be a "yes," but when their father began to shake his head, those eyes appeared crestfallen, though Ryou didn't let the expression reach his face.

"No, I'm afraid that I won't be able to make it. I've got some business to attend to tomorrow, and then I'm flying a red eye back to Egypt. I'd really love to Ryou, but it's urgent that I get back as soon as possible. Maybe next time I come to visit I can go to whatever you've got planned." He offered a smile to his son, and Ryou accepted it with a smile of his own, but Bakura had hung around his brother long enough to know that it wasn't genuine. As Marik and his father continued their talk, both he and Ryou directed their gazes to their food and ate silently. When he was done, he put his plate in the sink and headed to his room, leaving Ryou, Marik, and his father alone in the dining room.

Bakura lied down on his bed with his hands crossed behind his head. He could hear Marik and his father talking. His dad laughing every now and then at something Marik must have said. That confused Bakura to no end, for he could not remember ever once hearing Marik say something funny, or even remotely interesting. Ryou did not talk at all. He hadn't expected that he would. Ryou would sit there with the two of them until their father decided to retire for the night, and then he would go to his room, and Bakura would go to him. That was the way things worked, the way they always went. Ryou should know this better than anyone, and yet he still kept trying. It was stupid, really.

He heard the talking finally cease, and then footsteps in the hallway as their dad went to his room. A little while after Marik budged his fat body in through the crack in Bakura's door, and flew to sit on his headboard and babble on about how he thought their dad wasn't half bad. Bakura paid no attention to him though, concentrating on the noise outside, searching for a specific sound. He heard Ryou retreat into his own bedroom, and then after half-listening to Marik babble about some other useless inanities, he heard the noise of quiet crying. The moment the noise reached his ears, Bakura stood up and left, cutting Marik off mid-sentence.

"Ryou, Ryou, come on now, stop it. You already knew what he was going to say. No use in crying now," He said to his younger brother. Ryou was crying quietly on his bed, just like Bakura had known he would be. So he had crawled onto the bed and sat with his brother against his chest. Bakura did not like having to comfort Ryou like this, but he knew from experience that this was the quickest way to get him to stop crying. And Bakura liked a crying Ryou even less than he did showing his protective nature.

"I know, b-but I have to try! I can't help it. I just want him to see us, and pay attention," Ryou said miserably. He buried his face into his brother's shirt and sniffled pathetically.

"He doesn't ever see us. He hasn't since we were little. Do you think he cares, Bakura? Do you?"

Bakura knew that he could lie. He could lie and tell Ryou that their father did care about them, and he did love them. Just that maybe, he had a strange way of showing it. He could tell that to Ryou, and Ryou would believe him, because Ryou always believed him. But then it would only hurt worse when the next time he came over, their father still paid them no mind. He could tell Ryou the truth, but he knew that would hurt him just as badly.

"I don't know, Ryou. I don't know." So he decided to say nothing. Ryou would know that he was coping out, but he wouldn't push it any further. And he didn't.

"Will you come to my dance recital, Bakura? I know you don't really care for it, but I'd like it if you were there. You don't have to, though," Ryou said. He lifted his head up from Bakura's shirt and smiled to let him know that it was okay if he didn't. A smile tugged on Bakura's lips, and he sighed heavily to mask it.

"I suppose I'll just have to go, won't I?" He asked with some sarcasm layering his voice. A worried look began to form on Ryou's face, but before he cold start apologizing Bakura silenced him with a finger on his lips.

"Don't worry, it's not a problem. I'm sure I'll hate it, but I'll be there," He said.

"Thank you, Bakura," Ryou smiled. Bakura released his younger brother and let him move further away on the bed, then stood up.

"No problem, squirt." He smiled to the best of his abilities to do so, and then left the room. He didn't miss the fat body of one Marik Ishtar flying quickly back into his room, and even thought he'd expected something like this to happen, it still irritated him to see that he were right. Knowing Marik, he'd begin to ask questions the moment he was in the room.

"What was that all about? Why was Ryou crying?" Marik questioned the second the door had shut. Bakura glared angrily at the bird, but the other was completely unperturbed and even settled down close to Bakura on the headboard.

"He was crying because our father is an asshole. All Ryou has ever wanted is for the man to take notice of him like he used to do when we were younger. Ryou cries because every time he visits us, he never does. This time it was because he had you to occupy his interest. Next time it'll be something else," Bakura explained shortly. Marik's brow furrowed, and a strange expression came onto his face. Were he a human, it might have been interpretable, but as it was, Bakura couldn't figure out what it meant.

"It's not my fault! Someone actually wanted to listen to what I had to say, so of course I took him up on his offer!" Marik protested. Bakura raised an eyebrow and pulled his lips back to show his teeth in a snarl.

"Of course, why would it ever be your fault? Nothing ever is, right, Marik? If you hadn't been there, he would have ignored us for something else. But you certainly didn't mind his attention, did you? I could see you eating it up," Bakura pointed out snidely. Marik's expression seemed to darken, and he hopped around on the bed agitatedly. Bakura watched him as he fluffed his feathers, wondering what was going on inside his head.

On certain occasions, he wished that Marik were still a human so he could decipher his emotions better. After having spent time with the bird, he could already do so to some extent, probably more so than Ryou could, but it was difficult at times. Marik no longer had the ability to express a wide range of emotions on his face, and while Bakura could guess some of them easily enough, he was never able to fully understand them. He wanted to know what Marik was thinking right now. While it was true that their father would have ignored them either way, how did Marik feel to know that he had helped make Ryou cry? The bird couldn't be as heartless as he might want to pretend he was.

"Look, I'm tired now and I want to go to bed. He'll be leaving soon in the morning, but I'll still have to deal with him until he does, and if I don't get my sleep now, I'll be more prone to finally say something to him," Bakura said, dropping the subject. Marik silently obeyed and hopped back up onto the headboard. Bakura stripped out of his clothes and let them fall to the floor, not bothering to put them away. Ryou would do so at some point in time tomorrow. He lied down on his bed and stretched his body out on it, closed his eyes, ready to just let this night fade away. And then Marik's irritating voice interrupted his rest.

"Why does he ignore you?"

Bakura cracked open an eye and looked up at the strangely solemn bird above him. "What, you actually care?"

"No!" Marik protested immediately, feathers fluffing around his body again as he shook his small head rapidly, and with so much force his tiny body almost hopped off the headboard. "I'm just curious! I don't care at all!" Bakura let out a low chuckle, and the bird scowled down at him, obviously embarrassed.

"Fine, if you're going to tease me then just don't bother answering!" He cheeped angrily.

"Oh no, if you're actually showing some concern for someone other than yourself, I'll indulge in your curiosity. You want to know why he doesn't care, then fine, I'll tell you all about it," Bakura grinned softly. He closed his eyes again and shifted himself alongside his bed, getting comfortable. He heard Marik's taloned feet tapping impatiently above him against the wood of his bed.

"Ryou and I used to have a sister. Her name was Amane. She was beautiful. Looked just like our mother. We all loved her very much, especially our father, because she looked just like the wife he loved with his entire heart. Ryou and I never minded that she was his favorite, because she was so much younger than us and needed a lot more attention than we did anyways. And we were never envious of her, because we both loved her greatly as well.

"While Ryou and I were away at school and our father was working, our mother was left alone to watch over Amane. One day, she went out to buy some groceries. Our mother was usually a very good driver, but it had been snowing, and she drove over a patch of black ice and got into a car crash. Amane died instantly. Our mother was taken to the emergency room and remained alive long enough for my father to drive to the hospital and watch her die.

"Their deaths shook my father up greatly. He took solace in his work, and Ryou and I were left in the care of a babysitter. Once he felt like I was old enough to watch over Ryou, he quit his old job as a museum curator and became an archeologist. That had always been his dream job, but he'd promised our mother he would wait to accomplish it until we were all grown up, and he could take her with him to visit places all over the world. I guess he just figured that he couldn't wait any longer. So he left, and sent money in the mail for us every month for our living expenses, and once or twice a year he came back to Domino to visit us. And whenever he visited, he was like he was today. He smiles and laughs and asks us how we've been, but he doesn't really care. He hasn't cared about us since the deaths of Amane and our mother. Ryou still tries as hard as he can to involve him in his life, but I don't care anymore. He's never going to change, and the sooner Ryou learns that, the sooner he'll stop crying when our dad comes to visit," Bakura finished. Once upon a time, talking about his mother and little sister might have saddened him, but now he just shrugged it off. Ryou would have still cried, or felt something, but he could now talk about his past as if it had happened to someone else and not him. No sense in continuing to angst over it.

Bakura didn't expect Marik to say anything about his past, and so when he didn't, he wasn't very surprised. Marik was in many ways similar to himself, and he didn't strike Bakura as the type to utter meaningless apologizes. What had happened was sad, but it was over and done with, and there was nothing anyone could do to bring his family back. No amount of apologizing was going to change that fact.

Bakura rolled over onto his side and pulled his blanket up to his waist. He fluffed his pillow and after shuffling a bit, finally found a spot that was comfortable enough to sleep on. He heard Marik move above him, but he figured the bird would just move to the nest he'd made out of old clothes at the foot of the bed. He was a bit startled when instead, the bird flapped down to nestle down on the pillow beside Bakura's face.

"I… I probably should have let you and Ryou talk to your father some, huh?" Marik asked, sounding surprisingly thoughtful. Bakura stared at the bird for a moment, and now more than ever he wished he knew what Marik looked like as a human. He would have loved to see how he face looked lying next to him as he were, the closest he had ever come to actually apologizing for his behavior. Bakura shook the thought from his head and scoffed.

"I already told you that if it weren't you, he would have ignored us for something else. So don't get all sappy on me now," He said. He thought that would be enough to cheer the teen next to him up, but the bird's expression still looked forlorn.

"Even so, this is the reason why I'm still like this! I'd never thought I'd say it, but Isis was right to curse me like this," Marik said bitterly. "I'm a horrible person, aren't I, Bakura?"

Hearing Marik say that about himself angered Bakura more than he cared to admit. Marik was pretty annoying, but even when Bakura was thoroughly pissed off at the other teen, he wouldn't call him horrible. And he didn't want to hear Marik calling himself horrible either. He sat up in his bed with a glare on his face and scooped the tit up in both hands.

"You're not a horrible person, Marik. You're annoying as hell, and you are most definitely selfish, but you're not horrible. You can be funny, and more often than not I actually like talking to you. So shut up already and stop saying things like that," Bakura stated. The bird's small face was inches away from his, and black beady eyes bore into his own. He wondered again what Marik was thinking, then became annoyed with himself when he realized he was thinking about that far too much, and far too often.

"Bakura…" Marik said quietly. Bakura ignored his soft voice and placed the bird back down on the pillow, then laid down himself.

"We'll turn you back into a human eventually. Until then, just keep on being the same person you always are and stop worrying so much. It's weird," He said. The corner of Marik's beak seemed to stretch upward in what looked like a smile. He ruffled his feathers and then settled down on the pillow, making himself comfortable.

"Whatever, Bakura," He said before hiding is head under a wing. Bakura himself voiced the chuckle that Marik really couldn't, and then he too closed his eyes and fell asleep.

00000

The next day Ryou was off to another dance practice before either Bakura or his father has woken up. He had poked his head into his brother's room before he left to explain that he had to leave. Normally, he wouldn't be practicing so much, but with the recital coming up soon, Ryou said that he wanted to get as much rehearsal in as he could. Bakura, half asleep as he was, had waved Ryou off without even bothering to lift his head off his pillow.

When he actually woke up about an hour later and dragged himself out of his bed, his father was already up and at 'em, and had apparently made pancakes for breakfast. As Bakura slumped down into a seat at the table, a plate stacked with three hotcakes landed in front of them. He eyed the plate distrustfully, and then his father.

"I made Ryou some as well. Where is he, anyways?" The cheerful man asked. After taking a precarious bite and chewing thoughtfully, Bakura put his fork down and stared at the man.

"He left. Had to go to dance practice. Must not have told you," Bakura said casually. His father seemed untroubled by the news, and Bakura returned to his pancakes. The food was actually rather good, but he'd never admit to that in a million years. Ryou was missing out, but he was glad that his brother had left, and without telling their father that he was leaving, too. Maybe the kid was finally wising up like he had.

"Well I've got to leave soon myself, so maybe I'll see him again some later tonight when I come back to get my bags," Bakura's dad said.

"Maybe," Bakura stated. He ate in silence from that point on, not at all bothered by the quiet. This was how his normal day proceeded anyways. Ryou would babble to him about something or other, and he would eat and pretend like he cared and was listening. Once Marik came to stay with them, he and Bakura usually ended up carrying on their own conversation while Ryou joined in once in a while, or watched them with a smile. Speaking of Marik, the bird was coming out now. He was flying lazily into the kitchen, and when he landed in his customary spot astride Bakura's shoulder, his beak opened in a yawn.

"What's goin' on?" He asked sleepily.

"Ah Marik, I'm glad to see you awake! I wanted to speak with you again today! I had a talk to a friend of mine who used to work in the Ancient Egyptian part of the museum last night, and he was most interested in hearing all about the Ishtar family past and the curse that your sister put on you. If you'd like, I can introduce you to him today," Bakura's father offered.

The suggestion seemed to awaken Marik more than the smell of hotcakes did, and he cocked his head to the side and looked at the other man in the room. Bakura felt an irrational surge of anger run through him, and he gripped his fork tightly and speared another piece of pancake to be wolfed down. His father couldn't make the time to go to Ryou's dance recital, but he was more than willingly to help Marik out in any way that he could. What if this man would know how to turn Marik back to his original form? _He_ was supposed to be the one to do that!

"Do you think… that this man may be able to help me?" Marik asked, speaking the very same question that was on Bakura's mind.

"I'd like to say that he could, but honestly, I'm not sure. He knows a lot about the Pharaohs and the types of customs that used to go on in Egypt, so if you explained to him a bit more about this power your sister has, he might be of some help." The bird was silent in thought for a moment, then looked over to Bakura.

"Bakura, would you go with me? This man might be able to help me. I think it's worth checking out," He said.

"Why don't you just go yourself?" Bakura questioned snidely, still keeping his attention solely focused on his food.

"Because… you're the only one who's tried to help me through this entire thing, even if I forced you into it. When I turn back into a human, I want you to be there." Marik looked away, as if he were embarrassed by this admission. Were he a human, Bakura assumed that he'd be blushing. The thought brought a smile to Bakura's face that he quickly covered up with one of his sly grins.

"Well if you need me that badly, then I guess I can't refuse," He commented. Marik's small face morphed into as close a frown as he could get, and he directed his gaze again toward Bakura's father.

"Well I'm glad that you decided to give it a go. I hope you find something that'll be of use," The man said, pausing in his speech to scribble something down on a piece of paper. "Here's the address to his apartment. You'll want to tell the doorman that you're here to visit a Mr. Oyano." Marik flew and took the paper slip in his beak, then flew back to the table beside Bakura. He handed the slip over, and Bakura took a look at it. This Mr. Oyano person lived in the better area of Domino City.

"Well if I see you again, tell me how everything works out, Marik! I've got to get going now. Lots of things for me to do before I head back out to Egypt!" Bakura's father announced cheerfully. Bakura watched him put together a few things as he ate the rest of his food. In no time at all he had pulled out a briefcase and put on a coat, and then he was out the door, either forgetting or not deeming it important to give either of the two boys a farewell. Bakura thought it was just as well.

00000

After finishing up the pancakes and trying to get Marik to eat some (which did not result well), Bakura headed back into his room and dressed into whatever clothes on his floor didn't smell bad. That accomplished, he shoved the slip of paper his father had written on into his pocket and starting walking, Marik perched atop his head. It was a bit of a walk, but there was no way in hell Bakura would be caught riding a bike, and he didn't have any money for a cab, so walking it was.

He expected Marik to make conversation on the way to the building as he always did, but he was strangely subdued this time around. On any other occasion, Bakura would have been totally fine with this. He'd always been one to attract the disapproving stares of others for some reason or other, but since Marik had come into his life, that had begun to happen more and more often. Apparently, a talking bird was not something most people were used to seeing. No matter how many times he told the other to shut up, Marik never once listened. Now, when he finally had stopped talking, Bakura wished he would start up. He understood the reason behind the silence, he supposed. It was probably awful being stuck in the body of an animal that tiny, being unable to do practically anything by himself. Now there was a chance that Marik would be able to get his human body back. He had a lot to think about. The pale teen just wished that that thinking didn't have to be done silently.

When they reached the address Marik became more animated. He flew down to Bakura's shoulder and gestured to the old doorman. The man looked about as bent as the cane he used, and hardly awake. Bakura looked for someone else to talk to, but he seemed to be the only person available.

"Umm, hey…" Bakura started off, unsure as to if the old man was even really awake. Or alive. He nearly jumped back a foot when the man's clear blue eyes opened up, and even Marik uttered a shrill shriek. The man eyed the two boys with a questioning look, and once Bakura's heart had stopped trying to commit suicide by overworking itself, he approached the man meaningfully, like he'd never even been scared by the guy.

"We need to see a Mr. Oyano," He said. The old man nodded, and, using his cane, began to walk away toward an elevator. He looked over his shoulder at the two when he noticed they weren't following, and gestured for them to move. Bakura did so, and soon he and Marik were in the elevator with the old guy. Bakura's nose crinkled up from being in such close proximity to him. He smelled like window cleaner and hospitals.

The elevator took them to the eleventh floor, and when it stopped and they got off, the old man pointed to a room "1104." He gave them a little nod then, and shuffled back into the elevator. The door closed behind him, leaving Bakura and Marik alone in the hallway, with a door blocking them from the only person that might be able to turn Marik back.

"Well go knock!" Marik urged. Bakura rolled his eyes. It figured that when his companion finally decided to open his mouth (beak), it was to be just as annoying as he always was. Either way, there was nothing to do now but to knock, and so knock Bakura did.

Mr. Oyano looked freakishly similar to his father. He was a bit chubbier, and his hair was a short, dark brown, but the two bore similar facial characteristics. Both even had the same bad taste in clothing. The man was wearing dark khaki pants, coupled with a bright purple shirt that had some strange design made of stripes and dots on it. Bakura was more focused on that then the man himself.

"Ahh, you must be Bakura. Your father told me that you might be visiting. And is this your friend here?" The man asked. Bakura's eyes narrowed. He already didn't like this guy's attitude. He seemed like one of those holier-than-thou types, who thought they could get away with anything.

"Yes, I'm Marik. I heard that you might be able to think of something to turn me back?" The bird asked. Even though his voice sounded steady enough, Bakura could tell he was excited. His small body was practically bopping up and down on his shoulder.

"Well I'll have to hear a bit more about your current situation first, but I might be of some assistance. Please, come in." The door opened to let the two teens into the lap of luxury. The apartment was decorated in monochromic shades of black, grey, and white, but with a splash of color here or there to keep it lively and interesting. Paintings decorated the walls, and expensive vases rested in the corners. Bakura felt his fingers itch to grab something and shove it in his coat pockets, but he knew that right now he could not. Right now, he needed to be here for Marik. He could indulge in his kleptomaniac tendencies at a later time.

The two were led by Mr. Oyano into an office that was considerably more dull than the living room had been. A large oak desk sat in the center of the room, and a steel cabinet in a corner. The walls were boring white, and it seemed to Bakura more like a psychiatrist's office than anything else. All it was missing were the diplomas on the wall certifying that the shrink was allowed to tell you your life sucked.

Bakura took a seat while Mr. Oyano sat down behind his desk. Marik jumped down from his shoulder and began to tell the man what was basically the unabridged version of the story he'd told Bakura and Ryou's father the night previously.

Marik explained that his family originated in Egypt a long, long time ago. He said that they used to be Tomb Keepers; that was, they remained in the tombs of ancient Pharaohs to make sure that tomb robbers could steal away any valuables, or the desecrate the bodies of the ancient rulers. For a long time the Ishtar family did pretty well, but then a tomb robber known only as the Thief King began stealing from tombs all over Egypt, and no one could do anything to stop him. Marik said that the men in his family all came together to think of a plan to stop the master thief, but when nothing worked, the women went to the current Pharaoh for help. He gave them the same ability that Isis has, which Marik explained as the power to change the given shape of an object or person at will. It sounded confusing to Bakura, and Marik agreed that it was, but apparently it had been enough to stop the Thief King. Bakura was a little sad to hear that. As a thief himself, he felt a sort of connection to his ancient counterpart.

Marik continued on to explain that after the Thief King had been dealt with, the Ishtar females were able to retain their powers because they remained loyal to the rulers of Egypt, and used them only to do their bidding. For that reason, even though the Pharaohs no longer existed in this day and age, people like his sister were still able to use their ancient powers, although with each new generation, the strength and the potency of their ability decreased. Isis had used the power she still held to turn Marik into the yellow tit he was now.

"So, do you think you'd be able to help me?" Marik questioned the moment he was done, eager as ever. Mr. Oyano was still trying to digest the story, while Bakura, interested as he had been in the tale, was just as eager now to get on to what they'd came here for. Would Marik be able to return to his body?

"Hmmm," The chubby male mused. "Such an interesting story. Ahh, it's difficult to say." The man left his chair and moved over to the lone cabinet. There, he opened up on of the uppermost drawers and began to leaf through the files he had stored inside it, before selecting it one and bringing it to the table. "Tell me Marik, have you ever heard of the Sennen Items?" The file was opened up and spread out wide on the table, showing ancient hieroglyphics that depicted the images of seven various decorations, each bearing the Eye of Horus somewhere on them. Bakura watched as Marik's brow crinkled.

"What do these have to do with turning Marik back into a human?" Bakura asked, looking up at Mr. Oyano. A small smile curled up his lips, and he seemed to think that Marik recognized the depictions from the way he looked at them so intently.

"Well actually, Bakura, your father and I have been searching for them for quite some time now. A few years back, we found proof that the Sennen Items, things we only thought were rumors, actually existed with these carvings. Your father has been looking for them this entire time. They're the reason he's still in Egypt and not back at home with you and Ryou," Mr. Oyano said with a smile. The frown that Bakura had worn almost the entire time he'd been in this room increased. He didn't know what was up, but he hadn't liked this man from the beginning. Something was going on here, and the only reason he hadn't left right now was because there might still be hope for Marik, though as the seconds passed he was beginning to doubt that more and more.

"You still didn't answer my question. What do these items of your have to do with Marik?"

"Well nearly everything," Mr. Oyano replied. "The Sennen Items are said to hold great power. The Pharaoh you spoke about in your story Marik, the one that blessed the women in your family with their special ability, he probably passed it on to them with the power of the Sennen Items. If we could only find where they are, I do not have even one doubt that they could be used to turn you back human. All we need is to find them."

"It won't work," Marik said quickly. The bird was staring defiantly up at the tall man, challenging him with his glare. "The Items may exist, but they've never held any powers. That was all just a story to scare off the enemies of the Pharaoh. If the commoners thought their ruler had mystical powers they could fight with, they would never think to rebel. It was an effective strategy that prevented a lot of potential bloodshed, and only that. You do not need to know their current whereabouts."

"So you do know where they are though?" Mr. Oyano asked excitedly, completely ignoring the rest of what Marik said. The bird's glower increased as he neither admitted nor denied this accusation. Bakura was beginning to feel ansty now, not liking being ignored for as long as he was. This conversation seemed to be going nowhere fast. This man would not be any use to him or Marik, he could tell.

"Come on, Marik. I think we should leave. We're getting nowhere with this," Bakura suggested, standing from his seat. Marik shook his head in agreement and fluttered up to sit upon his shoulder, though his eyes remained constantly trained on Mr. Oyano. The man himself also exited the small office space after Bakura, stopping him right before he could reach the door with a hand on his arm. When Bakura spun around to glare at the offending touch, he removed his hand quickly.

"Bakura, Bakura, don't you think you're acting a bit too quickly here? After all, we don't know that the items don't hold any power, do we? And they're the reason your father is still in Egypt. Wouldn't you like for him to find them and come home? I'm sure Ryou misses him a lot. Why, the three of you could be a family again!" Mr. Oyano exclaimed with a smile. To Bakura, his voice and presence seemed to exude confidence, like he was sure of what to say to make things turn out in his favor. Bakura's fists clenched at his side. The only thing preventing him from knocking the slimy man out right now was the knowledge that it would probably land him in trouble. Normally, he wouldn't care, but right now, with their father in town, Ryou wouldn't be able to deal very well with any more drama. And if he was taken away by security, Marik may get stuck here with the man all alone. He wanted to get the bird out of here as quickly as possible. There was no longer a point in him staying.

"The Sennen Items don't hold any power! I already told you this! They can't turn me back to my original form, and I won't tell you where they are!" Marik screeched angrily.

"So you don't care about Bakura and Ryou's happiness then? You don't care if their father has to remain in Egypt for years longer, just because you won't tell us where they're buried?" Mr. Oyano prompted slyly. Quick as a flash, Bakura had grabbed the man by the collar of his purple shirt and held him up close to his face.

"Do not presume to talk about our happiness," He hissed, staring hard into the man's brown eyes. "Marik doesn't have to tell you shit if he doesn't want to. We're not going to help you. What we're going to do now is leave. Don't you dare contact us again, or I will not be held responsible for my actions. Right now, you should be glad I don't kill you." He let the man go, watched with some satisfaction as Mr. Oyano stumbled backwards, worry evident on his face.

Without another word, he stormed out of the room. Once in the elevator, Bakura felt Marik's eyes on him, but neither he nor the tit made conversation. When they reached the ground floor, Bakura stormed past the old doorman and out into the open air, leaving some of his frustration behind in the apartment building. The majority of it stayed with him, and he hoped that he didn't encounter his father again today. All he could picture was Mr. Oyano's face, so similar to his dad's, trying to use his and Ryou's happiness against him. Talking as if even if their father were back at home with them, things would be different.

00000

It was the day of Ryou's dance recital. The day that Bakura had promised to watch his brother because their father, ever true to his word, had been unable to do so. Watching his brother and a bunch of morons dance around on a stage wasn't exactly the highlight of Bakura's summer, but Ryou had asked him to come, and so he'd agreed that he would. That was why Bakura hadn't really wanted to go out to get ice cream with Marik, but the damn bird hadn't left him alone until he'd agreed to do so. He left with Ryou telling him that he'd be leaving soon, and the recital started in an hour. Bakura had said that he'd be there.

At the moment he was standing outside in the sweltering heat, the fifth in line to get his ice cream. This wasn't exactly the highlight of his summer, either, though it seemed to be just the opposite for Marik. The yellow tit was hopping excitedly from one foot to the other atop Bakura's shoulder, his tiny talons digging into the fabric of the stripped shirt the pale teen wore with every landing. Bakura really wished he would not do this. Marik had a bad habit of putting tiny holes into his shirts when he did this, and always on his left shoulder.

"Will you knock it off already?" Bakura snapped.

"Well _so-rry_ I would like to have some fun! I haven't gone out for ice cream in ages!" Marik chirped excitedly. Bakura sighed and rolled his eyes. In front of him, a man and his young daughter were finally given their order, and the line shuffled forward an inch. He almost groaned out loud when he heard that the next customer still had yet to make his mind up. What had he been doing the entire time he was in line?

"Oh come _on_, Bakura! It's not_ that_ bad, going out for ice cream with me!" Marik scoffed as he zipped off his companion's shoulder in favor of flying around his head.

"Yes, it is," Bakura replied. Marik decided to pull on a chunk of his white hair for that comment, the bird version of sticking out his tongue. Only it was more painful. When they finally reached the top of the line, Bakura found out to his great joy that Marik had yet to decide on a flavor as well. So, to his dismay and the amusement of the girl ready to take their order, Marik began to debate the pros and cons of each flavor.

"Hmm, banana sounds like it would be good, but then there's mocha flavor, and I really like coffee… Oh, but there's raspberry too! I've never tried raspberries, but they're red like strawberries, so they must be good! Oh, maybe I should get strawberry? Or wait…" The bird mumbled to himself. "Bakura, what flavor are you getting?"

"I'm not getting one. I don't eat ice cream. It's too sweet," he replied. By the look on Marik's face, one would have thought he'd told the bird that he was the most annoying thing in life. Oh wait…

"Bakura! You haaave to get an ice cream! You have to! It's no fun if you don't!" Marik insisted very loudly. The girl still waiting for them to order started laughing quietly behind a hand. Bakura felt his cheeks heat up, and for he sake of shutting up Marik and getting him away from this place, he ordered a caramel-flavored ice cream cone. Marik cheerily ordered the same.

With both ice creams in hand, Bakura finally escaped the throng of customers and the stares of those who took a talking bird far more seriously than the server girl. Marik offered to carry his, but after a look from Bakura, he was forced to realize that this would not be happening.

"Can you even eat ice cream?" Bakura questioned, wishing he'd thought of this before fishing out the money to pay for both cones. Marik contemplated the question for a second, then dived straight for the icy treat.

"Let's find out!" Ice cream, meet Marik. Apparently, the bird could indeed eat ice cream. Neatly? Now that was another matter. Within seconds he had gotten the sticky cream all over his feathers and beak. Which forced Bakura to make a beeline to the nearest place with a public restroom, which happened to be the local park. The last thing he needed was Marik making a mess of his shirt as well as himself.

After abandoning the ice cream cones (because he wasn't going to eat his, and there was no way Marik would eat two), Bakura took the messy bird into the men's bathroom and began running the faucet. Marik hopped down into the porcelain sink and wet himself under the stream of water, shaking his feathers to get the mess off. He also happened to get Bakura wet in the process, which he thought to be hilarious.

"Are you finally done now? We need to get going to Ryou's dance recital, and we need to move quickly. We'll probably be late now because you had to make a mess," Bakura said irritably, holding his now-wet shirt off his body with a scowl. He was a bit too preoccupied with the shirt and wet spots on it, so he missed the look that passed over Marik's face at the mention of the recital. Although, with the form Marik was stuck in, he might not have caught it either way.

Marik ruffled his feathers once more and took off into the air. He pulled on Bakura's hair to get his attention, and then flew outside of the restroom, Bakura following behind him.

"Let's go do something! We're at the park, and it's a nice day out, so let's go for a walk or something! Or you could go get your BB gun and shoot more small animals," Marik suggested. Bakura rolled his eyes.

"Did you just not hear me when I said we need to get going? We have Ryou's dace recital to go to, and the last thing I need is another you following me around. Who knows how many other people your sister has cursed into the form of annoying tits like you?" The pale teen scoffed. He'd meant the last comment as a joke of sorts, but Marik didn't seem to take it as such. The bird's expression darkened, and he flew further away from Bakura before turning back around to speak with him.

"Do I really bother you that much?" He asked, strangely serious in tone. The first and only time Bakura had ever heard Marik like this was when they'd visited his father's associate, and back then he'd been angry. Bakura regarded the hovering tit a bit more thoroughly than he had before. He didn't look angry right now, but it was hard to tell exactly with the form he was in.

"What are you talking about, Marik?" He asked with a frown. The yellow bird flew in close to his face, and Bakura was once again staring eye to eye with him, in the same way he had when he'd told Marik that he wasn't a horrible person.

"Don't go to Ryou's dance recital! You're always doing things for Ryou, Bakura! You need to do something for yourself once in a while! Stay here with me!" Marik demanded. Bakura's eyes widened. Where was this coming from? Marik had always been a brat, but he'd never been this persistent about something he knew Bakura could not do.

"What are you saying? Get back here, Marik! We need to go! I don't know what you're trying to get at here, but I told Ryou that I would go to his dance recital, and I'm going to go to it! Now get down here!" He commanded. Instead of obeying, Marik flew even further away.

"See? You're only going because Ryou wants you to, not because you want to! Stop doing whatever Ryou tells you to, and do what you want to do!" Marik cried out. Bakura stomped towards the bird, beginning to get irritated with his behavior now.

"I am doing what I want, and what I want is for you to _get down here!"_ He hissed. Marik did the very opposite. With one more look at Bakura, he turned around and flew furiously into the wooded area of the park. Bakura watched him go, then swore and headed in after him.

He had absolutely no idea where Marik was going, and he was of the opinion that Marik didn't either. The two of them were blindly racing through the woods, and this irritated Bakura to no end. He felt like an idiot, running throughout the woods like a fool. What bothered him even more was that he_ knew_ that Ryou's recital had already started, and here he was, doing god knows what with Marik in the woods! And then the things that the things that the idiot had said, too! That got Bakura's blood boiling more than anything else. If he did things for Ryou all the time, then it was only because the boy deserved it. Ryou had been abandoned by his father, the one person he wanted more than anything to pay attention to him, and then stuck with a brother like Bakura, who was just as selfish as Marik himself was. Ryou deserved all the attention he ever got.

So why then, was he still chasing Marik around in the park? The thought almost made Bakura pause. His pace slowed, his feet beginning to rest longer and longer on the spongy floor, and his eyes no longer searching for the spot of yellow in front of him. He contemplated turning around, just going back to Ryou now. If he hurried and didn't get lost in the woods, he would still be there to see most of Ryou's dance. And he owed it to his brother to do so. Ryou had asked him to come, and he had said that he would. He wasn't about to start lying to his brother like their father did. But Marik was nowhere to be seen now, and he knew that if he left, the bird wouldn't be coming with him.

Why did that thought anger him so much as it did? Marik obviously didn't want to go, and didn't want him to go either. It made no sense why, but then half of what Marik did made no sense. He wished that the boy were a human once more, just so that he could finally understand what was going on in the fool's head. But Marik would never turn human again, not with the way he continued to act. Even now, he was being selfish by insisting that Bakura dismiss Ryou's recital in favor of fooling around in the park. And Bakura was doing it! He didn't understand why he was still running after Marik, even now when he had no idea where the bird had gone to, but he was. He knew that he should just leave the idiot here to fly around in the park he so obviously wanted to be in, but his feet were still moving him forward instead of back. He didn't want to leave him here, he realized. Just like he hadn't wanted to leave Marik alone with Mr. Oyano.

He stopped. "Marik!" He yelled, his voice ringing through the wooded area. His eyes searched the trees around him, looking for the telltale spot of yellow among the green, but he saw nothing. He tried again. "Marik!"

And then there he was. Marik had flown in from somewhere among the trees, and came to a stop a few yards away from Bakura. He eyed him warily, but said nothing, letting Bakura do all the speaking.

"I'm done with this," Bakura said. "I'm done with this little chase through the woods, or whatever you were trying to accomplish. I am going to Ryou. I told him that I would be there for him, and I am going to hold true to that promise. I'm not going to turn into my father because you want me to go out on some foolish outing to the park." If the words affected Marik at all, Bakura couldn't tell from the bird's expression or actions. The only thing he did was to settle himself down on a tree limb.

"Why do you care if you act the same way as your father? Ryou loves the both of you! He probably wouldn't even care if you acted more like him, if it meant that the three of you could be together again! I guess I should go and tell Mr. Oyano where the Sennen Items are buried, huh Bakura? If I told him that, the three of you could be together and happy. I bet you wanted me to tell him, didn't you? But I didn't, because I didn't care about any of that! I was just as selfish then as I always am, because I didn't care if he came back and made Ryou happy! But you want Ryou to be happy, don't you? So I guess I should just go and tell him then!" Marik yelled. His small body was heaving from the force of all he just said, and his tiny eyes were wide and unblinking.

"Marik, I don't understand anything that you're saying now. So just shut the hell up, and get down already!" Bakura demanded.

"No!" The two of them stared at each other, Marik looking a little surprised now as to the volume of his yelling. He was trembling now, and he looked like he was about to fall off the tree branch if he didn't steady his footing.

"I don't want to go see Ryou! Stay here with me!" He yelled.

"Marik, you are being an idiot!"

"I'm being an idiot for wanting you to stay here with me instead of go to Ryou?" Marik interjected. "Why can't you just stay here? Ryou doesn't need you! I need you! Stop helping Ryou and help me!"

Bakura lost it. His nostrils flared and his fists clenched at his side. He walked straight up to where the bird was perching above him, and he glared at him with all the anger and hatred he could muster. If he'd been in front of him, bird or not, he would have thrown Marik headfirst into a tree.

"Do not say things like that. Ryou deserves my help far more than anything like you ever could. And if you can't see that, then you can just leave. Stay here in your damn park, and find someone else to help you," He stated, voice deadly calm. Marik's eyes widened as much as they could, but he didn't say anything more. He nodded slowly, and then spread his wings and flew off alone into the woods.

Bakura stood motionless in front of the tree the tit had been in, eyes closed and trying to steady his breathing. He had to calm himself down. Marik was gone now. Marik was gone, and he would no longer be back to say anything foolish, or irritate him, or get between him and anything ever again. Marik was gone. And he had to go to Ryou's dance recital. He opened his eyes, took one long, steady breath, and began to walk, calmly, out of the woods. Running would get him there faster, but he needed to be calm now. If he were not calm, he would explode and yell and cause more of a mess than he was already in.

00000

By the time Bakura finally made it to Domino High where the recital was being held, people were already leaving the building. Instead of entering the building, Bakura decided to wait outside for his brother. After a few minutes he emerged with a woman Bakura vaguely recognized as being in their class last year. This must have been the Anzu-something-or-other that was teaching Ryou to dance. When Ryou caught sight of him standing off to the side, he waved the girl goodbye and headed to meet him.

"You didn't show," Ryou said. He had a sad little smile on his face, and Bakura cursed Marik for being the one to put it there.

"I know. I had planned to, but Marik got me caught up in something else, and by the time I got here it was already over. Sorry for that, Ryou," He said. Apologizing wasn't something he did normally, and Ryou knew this, but this time the apology completely bypassed him as his face took on an expression of worry.

"Where is Marik? Did something happen? Is he okay?" Ryou asked, looked around the thinning crowd now as if expecting to see the bird there. He was about to start a one-man manhunt when Bakura grabbed him by the shoulders and forced his brother to concentrate on him.

"Marik's fine. The two of us had a little argument, and we decided it would be better off if he just stayed in the park. The way things were going, he wasn't going to be turning back into a human anytime soon," Bakura explained with a shrug. If he were honest with himself, he did feel a little lonely without Marik there to sit on his shoulder and complain about something or other, but the bird had needed to go. Things were better like this.

"Did you yell at him?" Ryou asked, strangely subdued. The sound of his voice brought Bakura back from his thoughts, and he frowned at the way they had been going.

"Well we both yelled at each other," He admitted.

"Bakura…" Ryou sighed. He took a step closer to his brother, and held his head high to look into the other's twin brown orbs. The defiant look on his face was out of place. It seemed more like an expression that would be found on Bakura's own face.

"Bakura, I want you to go back there right now and apologize. I know just as well as you that you don't really think Marik should stay in the park all by himself. He might not have turned back into a human with us, but at least he had somewhere to stay. I don't care if the two of you had a fight about something. The two of you are friends, and you shouldn't be angry with one another," Ryou scolded. Bakura just sighed and waved his brother's words off. He didn't understand. They'd been fighting about him, and Bakura wasn't going to just head back to the woods and tell Marik he'd been wrong this entire time. Even if he did sort of miss the bird.

"I'm serious, Bakura! Pay attention to what I'm saying to you! You miss him, don't you?" Ryou questioned. Bakura frowned. How had he known that was what he was thinking? Had his thoughts really been _that_ obvious?

"I don't miss him!" He denied. "And I'm not going back there. He made me miss your recital, and he's not getting away with that. I told you that I'd go to it, and I don't like breaking my promises to you."

"But you don't mind breaking your promises to Marik?" Ryou countered. "You told him that you would help him get his body back. You can't let a silly argument prevent you from doing that!" His brother's eyes were on fire now, and his voice only sounded more and more determined. "Bakura, it's okay that you weren't here to see my performance. There will be others that you can go to. So go find Marik, and bring him back home, okay?" He smiled sweetly, and Bakura knew right then and there that he wouldn't be able to go against what his brother wanted him to do. He sighed in fake annoyance and kicked the ground with a foot.

"Only if I can find that stupid idiot. He probably flew off somewhere and got himself lost."

"You'll find him, don't worry. Now get going! Be back home before it gets dark!" Ryou called, giving him a small push from behind. Bakura rolled his eyes and gave his brother the finger, whose smile only increased and waved him off.

00000

Getting back to the wooded area of the park didn't take nearly as long as it had getting away from it. He wondered if that was because, deep down, he really did want to see Marik again. Unfortunately, the task was easier said than done. Bakura found himself back at the same spot where he'd told Marik that they should go their separate ways easily enough, but the yellow tit was nowhere to be found. He could see neither hair nor hide of him. So, with nothing else to do, and Ryou's urgings still in the back of his mind, Bakura continued forward into the tangle of trees.

He didn't have to walk for long before he heard something. It was not the trill of a bird, or even the grating voice of Marik, but the sobbing of what could only be a child. Bakura did not like children. Even when he'd been one himself, he was more inclined to keep with the adults than his younger peers. Crying children he hated even more than those that didn't. So he really didn't want to deal with this one here, but what if it was some kid lost in the woods? Ryou would scold him again if he left some kid alone out here. So even though it was in his best interests to just find Marik and leave the kid alone, Bakura angled himself toward the sound of the crying.

The noise led him to a small clearing in the woods, and there, sitting on the branch of a fallen tree, was a hunched up person. Bakura was more than surprised to find out that the noise he'd thought of as a child crying was actually coming from someone that was probably closer to his age. He stifled the urge to laugh, and instead concentrated on sexing the person before him. Hands covered the face, and so the only defining features available for Bakura's eyes to rest on were the person's blonde hair, their tanned skin, slender figure, and the excess of purple he or she seemed to wear. Suddenly the person lifted their face up and looked directly at him, as Bakura belatedly realized that he'd stepped on a twig in his attempt to get closer.

With the face visible to him now, Bakura could see that the person sitting on the log was a male. The idea that a man had been crying and sounding like a little kid was even more hilarious than a woman doing the sobbing, but Bakura couldn't find it in himself to laugh at this person's misfortune. The face of the mystery man seemed familiar to him, though he was sure he'd never seen anyone like this person. He wore golden jewelry around his neck and arms, and black khol around his eyes. Things like this seemed as if they should have made the male look girly, but all they really did was make him more appealing. And his eyes, Bakura found himself attracted to this most of anything else. They were an expressive amethyst, full of sadness and tears, and Bakura was transfixed by them. He watched as they widened upon seeing him, and then as a look of fear entered their depths.

"I heard you crying," Bakura explained awkwardly, feeling the need to say something and break the silence. "I thought you were a little kid." The male said nothing to him, and Bakura felt like hitting himself for the comment.

"Well umm, I was supposed to be looking for someone, so I guess I'll just leave you to whatever it is you're doing here," he said after another length of silence, and turned around to excuse himself.

"Wait!" The person behind him cried out. Bakura turned back around just in time to see the other male retract the hand he had outstretched, and stare at it with a frown.

"Who are you looking for?" He asked, cocking his head to the side in a manner surprisingly similar to the very person Bakura was looking for. For a second, even though he had never seen Marik as a human, this person reminded Bakura of the annoying tit exactly. The voice was similar too, although Marik's was much shriller and higher-pitched. Bakura shook his head, and gave a rueful grin.

"This is going to sound strange, but have you seen a small, yellow bird with a mohawk flying around somewhere? Umm, it may have been talking, like, human language," He said, feeling like an idiot in the process. It was one thing for others to see the bird talk themselves, but standing here, talking about it without the proof just sounded crazy. The person on the log didn't seem to think so though, as he gave a small grin. The tear-trails were still wet against his cheeks, creating an interesting juxtaposition to the happiness in his smile.

"You have no idea who I am, do you?" The male asked. Bakura bristled at the playful tone in his voice, feeling like he was missing out on something and being made fun of for it now.

"Well of course I don't! I've never met you before in my life!" He snapped.

"And you call me an idiot," The other male scoffed. He stood up finally from the log, and straightened himself out. Tanned skin peeked out at Bakura from the edge of the purple shirt he wore, and something about it triggered a memory. Isis, Marik's sister had looked just as gorgeous as this male had, and had the same caramel colored skin. And now that he was looking for connections, this person's face had a similar structure to what little he had seen of Isis. And the smirk he now wore… It was exactly the same as Marik's, though as a bird he'd only been able to pull it off so well.

"You're Marik," Bakura announced. His voice sounded strangely far away, the same as he felt. For so long now he'd wondered how Marik would look when he finally regained his human body, and now that he finally knew, it all felt like a dream. How had it happened? The last he'd seen Marik, he was still a yellow tit.

"That I am, back in my original body and all," Marik announced, taking a half-bow. He was smiling, but it didn't reach his entire face. His eyes still showed that he was nervous.

"How did this happen?" Bakura asked. The smile faded slowly off Marik's face, leaving him with a troubled expression, the same as the one he'd worn when Bakura had first stumbled upon him. The pale teen felt an immense load of guilt fall down on him for making Marik look like that. He didn't know what he'd done, but he knew that it was his fault.

"It happened because I left," Marik said. He slowly dropped back down onto the log, and held his head between his hands. Bakura watched distractedly as his blonde hair shimmered between his slender fingers, then came back to himself once Marik began to speak again.

"Isis told me that I was selfish. That's why she turned me into a bird. I never turned back earlier because even though I knew I was being selfish, and tried to stop it sometimes, I didn't really care. I wanted to get back to my human form so badly that I never once stopped thinking about it. And even though I tried thinking about what others wanted and less about what I wanted, as long as I never stopped thinking about being in my original body again, I didn't turn back." Marik paused in his monologue and looked up at Bakura. His hands moved down to his lap, and once there, they began to twist themselves together, a sure sign of his agitation.

"I said the things I said to you earlier because… I was jealous. I knew that both you and Ryou were trying to help me, but all I kept seeing was you do things for Ryou, and it felt like my predicament didn't matter. I wanted you to spend more time with me, and not him!" Marik spoke, voice raising. His hands moved rapidly and his brilliant amethyst eyes flashed hard for a second. The he calmed himself once more, and his hands rested unmoving in his lap, as if they were embarrassed of their previous actions.

"Then you told me to leave. And even though I wanted to stay with you and I wanted to keep you with me, I knew that I couldn't do that. So I left. I didn't think about turning into a human for a second then, or about the things that I wanted. I thought about how horrible I'd been the entire time with you, and how you and Ryou deserved to be happy. One second I was flying in the air, trying to get away, and then in the next I was back down on the ground in my human body. And I didn't care at all," Marik finished bitterly. His eyes had traveled back down to the ground, and Bakura longed for them to be on him once more.

"Why were you crying?" He asked. He didn't care so much about the question, just that it would bring Marik's attention back up to him where it should be. But once he said it and brought Marik's stare back up to him, he realized that it was really the only question that still needed to be answered. And he wanted it answered, more than he knew he did, because it struck him as wrong that Marik would ever be crying.

"Bakura… Do I have to answer this one? Can't we just pretend like it didn't happen? Why don't we go find Ryou, and show him that I'm a human again? I need to tell him sorry for making you miss his recital too, so let's just get going and—"

Marik had started to look nervous and fidgety again the moment Bakura brought the question up. He got off the log and started walking to the way out of the woods and the park, but Bakura grabbed him by his arms (it was so strange to feel human skin under his fingertips now, and not feathers) and forced the tanned boy to look at him.

"Answer the question, Marik. I think I deserve to know, don't you?" He said. Marik gulped audibly. His eyes shifted back to the ground in an uncharacteristic show of nerves, and when he started to talk, it was very quietly.

"I… didn't mean to. If I'd known it were happening, then I would have stopped it somehow, but I didn't. So don't get angry at me," He said lowly.

"I won't," Bakura promised. Marik looked at him for a second, then his eyes were again focused on the dirt.

"I… like you, Bakura. A lot," He confessed. Bakura's brows furrowed. He didn't understand.

"So what? You're annoying as hell, but I guess I like you too. No reason to act all embarrassed because of that," He snorted.

"No, you idiot. I like you more than a friend. I _like_ you," Marik explained, stretching the word out. Bakura blinked. And then let the tan boy go as he understood what Marik was trying to say here.

"I didn't mean to! I didn't even realize that I did until I got so angry at Ryou. I-I didn't understand why I was at first. It was Ryou. Ryou doesn't do anything to piss anyone off! But then I noticed that it was because you paid so much attention to him. I started getting envious of him, because I wanted you to pay that much attention to me, but you didn't. So I tried to make you spend more time to me, but you still kept insisting that we go see Ryou. You didn't want anything to do with me. That's why I was crying," Marik explained. His face morphed into a grin and he chuckled. "Pretty pathetic, isn't it? To cry over some guy."

He looked so forlorn and upset that Bakura knew he had to do something. He felt his feet moving to Marik and his hands grabbing his face, while his brain still was quite unsure of what to do. His eyes looked at the other male and noticed the dried tear-tracks that were still on his cheeks. Those were his fault. He didn't like being the reason behind Marik's tears.

Marik liked him. That was why he had been crying. Marik was upset that he spent more time with Ryou than he did Marik. But that was silly of him, because Ryou was his brother. He had to spend time with Ryou. He lived with the kid. He'd said he would go to Ryou's dance recital because Ryou was his brother, and he didn't want Ryou to be sad. Their father made Ryou said, and he didn't ever, ever want to be like him. That was why he had told Marik that they needed to go. It wasn't because he didn't want to spend time with the other, because he did. Marik was annoying as hell, but he was fun too, and no matter if he thought otherwise, Bakura would never think of him as a horrible person. Ryou had said that Marik was his friend, and that he missed him. Ryou was right. He did miss Marik. Even though Marik had only been away from him for an hour at most, his absence hurt. But Ryou was wrong about Marik being his friend, because he didn't want Marik to be his friend. Friends didn't kiss other friends. And Bakura decided that yes, he was going to kiss Marik.

He touched Marik's lips with his own timidly, for he had never done something like this with another man before. But when Marik's hands grabbed onto Bakura's shirt like the talons he'd used to have and began to dominate the kiss, Bakura threw all modesty out the window and deepened the kiss, using his tongue to track down Marik's own. He'd never been one for such a thing anyways. Modesty was Ryou's department, and right now Bakura really did not want to be thinking of his brother.

They both broke away panting. Their bodies were much closer together than Bakura could remember them being originally, and one of Marik's legs had managed to sneak its way between his own.

"Guess I like you too," Bakura admitted with a grin. Marik copied it and licked his lips.

"So does this mean that we're together? Because oh god, I want to tell Isis! She's older than me by six years, you know, and I bet she still hasn't had her first kiss! Oh, she was soooo cool, thinking that she'd curse me and make my life miserable, but the joke's on her because I got a boyfriend now!" Marik shouted, face lighting up more and more with each syllable. And while it was completely endearing to hear Marik refer to him as his boyfriend, talking about Marik's sister was totally killing the mood.

"Can we possibly not discuss your sister and her love life? And I never agreed to be your boyfriend, you know," Bakura teased. Marik leaned forward and pressed a small kiss onto Bakura's lips, then grabbed his hand and began to drag his companion forward.

"Oh, you know that you are. I'm too hot for you to reject me," He said with a playful smirk. "Now come on, let's go tell Ryou too!" Bakura sighed in mock annoyance and allowed himself to be pulled along.

"You know, I might have liked you better as a tit. You were far less forceful then," He said. Marik stuck his tongue out at him, and then laughed and continued pulling. Well this certainly was not what he expected would happen when he went to find Marik, but Bakura supposed that all turned out okay in the end.

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><p>Corny ending is corny and cliché, but I don't care. So when I first started writing this I absolutely loved the idea. The past few days have made me hate it. If any of you follow my other YGO stories, you'll know that for a chapter of this length, it usually takes me aaaagggeessss to write it. Cranked this out in three weeks. That is NOT enough time for me, especially because most of the writing happened in this last week. So, because of that, I think this chapter kind of sucks, and I apologize for that. Normally I try to write a story on paper first, and then type it. Things seem to sound better that way. I've been just typing all of these things right away, and it has always seemed to work because they were short, small little fanfics. Then I got to this, and it just kept stretching on longer and longer... I think it would have been much better as a multichap story. Normally I try to focus on the emotions of the characters and describe those fully, but with this I just wanted to get it over and done with without making it too long, so I feel like I didn't get to do that as much. I also would have really loved to write from Marik's POV in some situations, because I was trying to convey that he liked Bakura, but I don't know how well that got across from Bakura's POV only. I sort of feel like the whole romance thing in the end came out of nowhere, and it wasn't done very well, and the humor didn't come out very well either.<p>

So okay, that's that then, sorry for the long AN. I just needed to complain XP Umm, I'd totally tell you what chapter six is going to be about, but honestly I have no clue. My friend came up with the brilliant idea of having blind child Marik (I don't even know...) rush out to the bus stop and encounter grown adult Bakura, who tries to tell him that knives are cool to play with. Now I think that sounds a bit too pedotastic for Bakura, not to mention pretty creepy, but hey, i figured I'd mention it either way, and if people really want me to write her idea, then I guess I'll do it. (One question though. WHY?) If not, I'll think of something! Something that will be significantly shorter than this, uggh!

Okay, that's it then. Thanks for reading, and please remember to review! Reviews are love, and I love you all, so spread it some! Thanks! Also Russians. Because with this lyric, I was so tempted to write something about them. Oh! And look up yellow tits on Google if you want to see what Marik looks like! I was searching for yellow birds and came across it and it's magnificent mohawk, and decided that that bird had some serious 'tude. So, Marik it was. Again, please review, and thanks! I'll see you all next week.


	6. Gotta Get Down To The Bus Stop

All right people! Sorry for the lateness of this chapter. I meant to have it up sooner, but I hadn't finished it. I really need to make these things stop being so long. Not as long as five, but still... Anyways! Some quick words about the chapter.

So I asked my mother and brother what they would write for this chapter. My brother said something horribly cliché about someone saving someone, and then confessing their undying love, while my mom suggested the movie _Speed_. The moment she said it, I knew I would have to write about it. When my youngest brother was a bit younger than he is now (five) he used to watch the movie _Speed_ all the time. Like every. Single. Day. We all eventually started saying that Keanu Reeves was his father, haha XD But so the movie is totally awesome, and I decided to glean some inspiration from it in writing this! And so here it is!

**Disclaimer!:** I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh, the song "Friday", or the movie _Speed_! But how rich would I be if I did, hurhur...

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><p>Chapter Six: Gotta Get Down To The Bus Stop<p>

_There's enough C4 on this thing to put a hole in the world._

00000

"There's a bomb on a bus."

Marik stared hard at the phone in his hand. It was a plain black wired phone that always sounded a little muffled because of how old it was. The handle was worn smooth from the touch of so many fingertips over the years, and every time Marik had to pick it up, he shuddered to think of all the germs and spit that probably covered the speaker. He'd only been a resident at the local police station for a few weeks now, but he had seen far too many times how many of the seasoned veterans liked to yell at whomever was on the other side of that phone conversation. Right now, that was the furthest thing from his germ-phobic mind as instead of holding the phone far away from his face like he normally did, it rested against his palm only a few centimeters away from the shell of his ear. He _could not_ have heard what he thought he did. The phone was obviously being especially screwy today.

"What?"

"I said, there's a bomb on a bus."

He contemplated hanging the phone up. The way he saw things, one of two options were going on here. Either his hearing was off, and that combined with the bad reception of the phone resulted in him hearing that so obviously wrong statement once more, or the person on the other end was actually being serious, and he needed to hang the phone up right now.

"Don't you want to know which bus it's on?"

Marik looked around the small station quickly. If there were a senior officer anywhere present, he'd tell them about the call. No one was in sight. The person that normally picked up any and all calls they received was passed out on their desk, snoring deeply. There was another officer in his cubicle, but he looked busy writing up some reports on the computer, and he was still a rookie. He wouldn't be any better off than Marik himself in this situation.

The station Marik chose to go to was a small offshoot of the larger Domino City Police Station centered in the middle of the downtown area. This building didn't have many officers to begin with, and all those that were assigned to work today were out beating the pavement. Most large reports got sent over to the downtown precinct. No one ever figured that a call like this would be sent to them, and so the officers didn't make it a priority to always have someone with experience stationed at headquarters. Which led Marik to his current predicament.

He could certainly hang the phone up and pretend like it had never happened, but the people on the bus with the bomb might not appreciate that much. Then he could give the mystery caller the number of his boss, one Seto Kaiba, but he hated the man so he didn't really want to do that either. Something definitely had to happen here, and preferably soon. The only option left to him was to handle the situation himself. It couldn't be _that_ hard, Marik thought. The call had been sent to this station, so the bomb couldn't be one that complex, and it wasn't like he'd never studied such things back in school. And maybe, if he did everything correctly and diffused the situation, Kaiba would finally see what a great cop he could be! He'd had it up to here with the man constantly looking down on him.

"Sure, go ahead and let me know the number."

00000

Marik found out pretty soon that the whole bomb-on-the-bus thing was a bit more complicated than the man on the phone had originally made it seem. Apparently, the bus in question was already loaded with passengers and racing around the highway, going at any speed higher than 50 mph. Why? Because any lower, and the bus and everyone on it would explode. Which would be unfortunate.

Marik was currently speeding toward the bus in a patrol car he borrowed from the station. _Technically_, he wasn't supposed to be using this vehicle, but then he shouldn't have been taking this call, either.

The bus was moving ahead without any trouble, but that didn't mean things were smooth sailing for Marik. He still had to get on the metal monster. Without making it stop, or slow down. Short of magically poofing onboard, the young man had no idea how he was supposed to get away with this.

The bus was heading straight down the freeway, chugging on and on, and Marik was still no closer to it than he was before. He was lucky that so far it had remained above 50, but that could change at any moment. He needed to get on that bus and warn the driver, and he needed to _now_. His alert eyes scanned the road ahead of him, searching for a way that he could get onboard. Something clicked in his mind, and he sped up, quickly going over the speed limit and cutting off quite a few other drivers. Angry horns blared behind him, but he couldn't stop to pay attention to their complaints. This was a crazy idea, but it might be the only shot he had at getting on the bus. He would only have one chance at this. Hopefully, he didn't end up killing himself in the process.

Marik drove his car off the highway and towards the exit to his right. Then he gripped the wheel tightly and swerved to the left, making the car miss the exit ramp completely and veer off into the grass. From that point on he followed the highway as much as he could, and as fast as he could. The car bumped along in the grass, and Marik swore as a nasty bump clashed his teeth together and made him bite his tongue. He grit his teeth together and continued on.

Beneath him, the grass floor was slowly rising while the plane of the highway remained flat. In only a few short moment, Marik found himself level with the bus. He pushed the car to speed up even more, and bypassed the bus and the passengers on it. The car continued to move steadily upward, while the bus continued on, and soon he was at least twelve feet higher than the roof of the bus.

He hesitated for only a second, but that second stretched on infinitely. Gruesome images of his own death passed through Marik's head, weakening his resolve with each picture of himself plastered on the highway like some artist's awful rendition of splatter paint. This was lunacy! There had to have been a better way of going about this! He could turn around and back out right now, go call his asshole of a boss and let him deal with it. Better yet, he could call the downtown station and let _them_ figure out how to handle the situation. Surely, with all the equipment and resources they had, they could come up with a better plan of contacting the driver of the bus and explaining the situation than the one Marik was about to go through now. One that didn't result in potential death, and/or bodily harm.

Before he could doubt himself even more, Marik spun the wheel to the left again and shot the car off the hill that had formed between him and the bus. Everything seemed to slow down the moment the wheels left the safety of ground. His car careened into the air like a bloated pigeon, while the traffic underneath him continued on at its ambling pace, his target amongst the crowd. Everything waded along as slowly as a worm in the mid-day heat. Everything except for Marik. His heart sped up to the point where he seriously wondered whether he would die of a heart attack before he could ever splatter on the ground. A shot of pure adrenaline, coupled with fear and the knowledge that he was a _complete imbecile_, and could very easily be seeing his last sights now, streaked through his veins faster than an alcoholic into a bar for happy hour. His fingers fumbled with the buckle of the belt around his waist, as he belatedly thought that he probably should have taken this off earlier. After finally removing it, he unlocked the car door and threw himself into the wind.

The only thing racing through Marik's head as the wind raced through his hair and clothes was that this really had to be the most idiotic and ill-planned action he had ever taken. Oh, if only his sister could see him now. She was always complaining that he never thought before opening his mouth or doing something foolish. Funny, he'd always argued that she was wrong. If he lived, he would have to apologize to her for that.

_SMASH!_

The pain that flattened Marik down against the metal roof of the bus was proof enough to make him believe that he was still alive.

_FWOOM!_

And that was the noise of the patrol car he'd taken crashing into something and exploding. Marik winced. He hadn't really thought of what would happen to the car after he propelled it off the side of the hill, but of course it couldn't have landed safely on all fours. Just another thing for him to get in trouble for.

He did a quick inventory of his body, discovered that aside from a lot of spots that would be black and blue next morning, the only thing he'd actually broken was his right pinky finger. Well, he couldn't have expected to do something so crazy without at least breaking _something_.

Putting the thought from his mind, Marik began to—_carefully!—_search the top of the bus for the emergency exit. All buses had one, and this particular exit would be his way in. When his scrambling fingers found purchase on the handle, he slowly slithered his way closer, and flung the small door open. The rush of wind that came directly at his face made him stumble, but before he could be knocked off he flattened his small frame back onto the metal roof. He gave himself a small time out, then began moving forward again, until he reached the edge of the exit. Without wasting another moment, Marik hopped down through it and onto the bus.

He definitely hadn't received stranger looks, Marik decided. Every single person on the bus, driver included, was staring at him like he was an alien that had just flown in from space and crash-landed on their bus. Which wasn't that far from the truth.

"What the hell do you think you're doing on my bus?" The angry tone of the driver broke the other passenger's paralysis, and all at once they started talking in rushed whispers, still giving Marik those strange looks. After shooting only a small dirty look at the lot of them (this was the thanks he got for nearly killing himself in an attempt to save their lives?), he hurried over the to the driver of the bus.

"Keep your eyes on the road!" He ordered.

"I know how to drive this thing, you fucktard! Don't order me around!" The driver swore, but he did as ordered, swerving to miss a car he'd almost hit and swearing loudly in the process. "There ya fucking go! Now what the fuck are you doing on my goddamn bus?"

Funny that this man was driving a bus, when he obviously should have been a sailor instead. Marik gave the man a quick once-over. With wild, pure white hair and boiling brown eyes, the driver didn't look like the type of person that took crap from others. That assumption would explain the attitude problem as well. He was definitely the most unique looking out of the lot, excluding Marik himself, who always stood out in a crowd. The other passengers were from all different walks of life, but appearance-wise, all were pretty ordinary. They looked no different from the same group of people you'd see pushing strollers with whining babies, or complaining to their partner about what to buy for lunch. Marik had been expecting something a little more… impressive, to say the least. If someone was going to go through the trouble of putting a bomb on a bus, he figured it would be because there must have really been someone he wanted to kill. No one in his present company looked ready for an attempt at murder, save for the driver, but then with that bad attitude of his, he probably dealt with such things on a regular basis.

Oh right! Cursing under his breath, Marik turned back to the driver. His lavender eyes made a quick stop on the speedometer—56—before resting on the driver. He'd almost forgotten all about actually _telling_ the man about the bomb!

"Look, I'll explain everything in a second, but for now I need you to keep driving, and keep this bus going above fifty," He said. The driver looked about ready to give him another piece of his mind, but Marik cut his off before he could start again.

"Everyone, I'm going to need you to all remain in your seats, and stay calm. I'm a police officer," He said, turning toward the rest of the population of the bus.

"Where's your badge?" A kid in the front seat questioned smartly. Marik checked the urge to sock the kid one. Technically, because he wasn't a full-fledged officer, he had no badge. Just a crappy laminate. Something his boss liked to flaunt in his face every chance he got.

"Look, that's not important right now. My station received a call this morning from an unnamed source who claimed that there was a bomb on the bus."

Frightened whispers and worried looks abound. There was probably a more delicate way he could have handled that, but right now Marik didn't have time for delicate.

"Please keep calm!" He insisted loudly, which brought the attention of everyone back up to him. Marik smirked a bit inwardly. He rather liked being seen as such an important figure. It certainly was different. "I'm here to locate the bomb, and diffuse it. As long as we stay above fifty miles per hour, it won't activate. I'll have located it and gotten rid of it in a matter of minutes, so just sit tight." Oh yeah, this wasn't bad at all. Now all of the passengers were looking at him like some savior that dropped down from the sky to help them all. Which wasn't far from the truth. _This_ was the reason he wanted to become a cop. Not because he got to help people, and serve his community, but because he received those looks of adoration after a job well done. These people practically worshipped him!

"Nice speech there, pal," A voice remarked dryly. Well, all but one person. The driver was looking at him again, smirking lazily. That smirk gave Marik pause before he could come up with something smart to say. It seemed so out of place in the situation. Like its owner was sitting poolside on a hot day, not driving a bus with a bomb hidden on it.

"You might have everyone else here fooled, but you aren't going to pull the wool over my eyes. You've got no clue what you're doing, do you? You're just some rookie who thought he could get his big break by saving us all," The man scoffed. He chuckled sensuously and rolled his eyes before directing his gaze back to the road.

"And just what makes you say that?" Marik bit out, irritated.

"Your legs are shaking." Marik's gaze shot down to his legs, and to his uttermost horror, he discovered that they _were_ shaking!

"That's just aftershock from jumping out of my car to reach you!" He snapped.

"Sure it is," The driver remarked.

"Well have _you_ ever done it?"

"Umm, excuse me." Marik spun around, about ready to give whoever interrupted his very important debate a piece of his mind, when he noticed that everyone aboard the bus was still looking at him, and had witnessed his very childish debate with the driver.

"Shouldn't you be trying to find out where the bomb is?" The middle-aged woman inquired. Marik forced his features to widen in an inviting smile, and he nodded humbly.

"Of course. I was just about to do that." Another chuckle came from the driver's seat, but Marik forced himself to ignore that. He had a job to do here. He couldn't afford to look incompetent in front of these people, lest they begin to think that he was a rookie as well.

And so without further ado, Marik began the arduous task of searching every single spot on the bus that he could think to look. He checked under seats and in the baggage carriers. He checked the back of the bus, ran his hands along the sides of the bus, even checked in the lights, much to the woe of his eyesight. After that he took inventory of every man's pockets, and every woman's purse, just in case someone had it hidden on their person. After _still_ not finding anything, Marik stood stumped in the middle of the bus isle. If he were a bomb, where would he hide?

"Run out of spots to look, have you?" The driver called sarcastically from behind his seat. Childish as it was, if the man had been able to see him, Marik would have stuck his tongue out. Instead, a devious smirk spread over his features as he headed over to the driver's seat.

"One place I still haven't checked," He pointed out evilly, while motioning to the space between the driver's seat and the dashboard. When one actually looked at it, there were quite a few places that a bomb could be hidden under there. And Marik was going to check all of those places thoroughly, while also causing the asshole of a driver some discomfort as well. It was a great plan all around. And besides, the guy wasn't all _that_ unattractive if he just shut his mouth, so Marik didn't mind putting himself in this position much either. So without further ado, he moved his lithe body far into the other male's personal space and dropped down to his knees.

"Well, if I'd known you were going to get on your knees so easily, I would have been a little nicer," The driver sneered. Marik looked up at him sharply, but from the parts he could still see of the man's face from this position, he could tell that he wasn't as irritated as he let on. A smirk danced around his lips, and Marik found himself mirroring it soon enough. So apparently the guy didn't mind all that much. Well all right, that let him have some fun.

Very deliberately, Marik bent down to his hands and knees in front of the driver's seat. He was already between the other's legs, but he felt the man widen them on either side of him to accommodate him even more. Marik's smirk widened, and he bent down even closer to the ground, sticking his behind out more. So maybe the best way to be proving his authority wasn't to be acting like some street whore, but it was _fun_. He could still feel adrenaline pumping through his system from his jump onto the bus, and while it had quieted some while searching for the bomb, it was roaring in his ears again now. Every time he nudged the man's legs, or a foot "accidentally" touched him, electricity shot through Marik. It was addicting, these pretend touches, and before long he was anticipating when the next would come more than searching for the bomb.

"You certainly seem to be having fun down there. Are you even searching any more?" The driver purred from above Marik.

"Don't think too highly of yourself. You're not that much fun," Marik chided. He heard the man make a disappointed sigh above him. He chuckled. Truth be told, he hadn't been searching for the past few moments, but the driver had reminded him that, exhilarating as this all was, he needed to start paying attention once more to what he was doing here. Without a doubt, he would get in trouble for blowing up a squad car and not letting a higher up know what was going on. He'd get in even more trouble if he never found the bomb because he was too busy flirting with the bus driver.

So Marik concentrated on the task at hand. He ran his fingers over smooth surfaces and felt the undersides of the dashboard. There were many wires there, but nothing that felt like it was connected to a bomb. He paid close attention to everything he felt, and successfully ignored the driver's mock caresses, much to the other's displeasure. When he no longer succeeded in producing any reactions from Marik, the driver started to solely concentrate on the road. Marik felt a little put off by this. He needed to find the bomb, or they'd all be in trouble, but he desired the attention of the other man all the same.

"So, what's your name anyways?" Marik questioned. If they couldn't continue their little game, then maybe they could at least hold a conversation.

"Oh, getting serious now, are we?" The driver asked.

"Hmm?"

"Well I don't normally tell people who blow me my name. But I guess with you I can make an exception. We are in a pretty unique situation, after all," The driver remarked dryly. Marik agreed with a nod of his head, though he was sure that the other couldn't see it. Whoever would have thought that he'd meet a hot guy on a mission to disarm a bomb?

"Mine is Marik," Marik announced, deciding to ignore that last comment.

"Marik the wannabe cop, hmm? I'm Bakura," The driver said with a smirk.

"Hey, at least wannabe cop is better than bus driver," Marik teased. He yelped as one of Bakura's boot-clad feet met quite harshly with his backside. He glared up at the other man, but the driver's eyes were focused on the road as he innocently hummed. Marik stuck his tongue out at the other and then continued to search for the bomb.

He looked everywhere he could think to, but once again, Marik found no bomb. With a scowl he slithered out from between the driver's seat. As he stood, he allowed his hand to slid across Bakura's thigh. The driver spared a second away from the road to shoot him a seductive grin, complete with an eyebrow waggle. Marik grinned, despite his irritance at not being able to find said bomb.

When he got to his feet and stood, the worried eyes of all the passengers on the bus raised with him. Marik suddenly became all too aware of his precarious position here. These people were all watching him. Every single one of them was expecting him to find the bomb, and save them all. Without warning, Marik's legs started to shake, and weaken. His hands gripped the side of the driver's seat just to keep himself upright.

What was he thinking? He couldn't do this! He was no cop! He wasn't even a rookie! He'd rushed into this thing blindly, with the insane assumption that he would be able to diffuse the bomb and save everyone on the bus. He couldn't even find it now! How was he supposed to be able to save these people? How was he supposed to do anything? At any moment, traffic could start getting bad and Bakura could be forced to slow the bus down to below fifty, and if that happened, what would he do? They would all die. Every single person on this bus, himself included! He'd never been able to do this. He shouldn't have even tried.

"Hey." It was Bakura's voice, low and seductive sounding, though he could tell that the man was not trying to sound as such. Marik tried to open his mouth to say something, explain that he wasn't able to do this, plead for someone else to take over, but his throat was parched.

"Calm down. Everyone here can see that you're freaking out, and that's not good for anyone. Right now, you're the only one keeping these people from panicking. If they see that you're losing it, all hell will break loose, and that's not going to be good for anyone. Stop and think. You didn't find it anywhere, but that's no reason to panic, right? That just means that it's somewhere you can't reach. So think outside the box. If you can't get rid of the bomb, then think of some way to get rid of all the people," Bakura advised lowly, eyes focused solely on the road in front of him.

Marik forced himself to listen to what the other was saying. He couldn't find the bomb. He had searched everywhere, and it wasn't anywhere on the inside of the bus. That would be too easy. That meant it had to be located somewhere on the outside, maybe of the underside of the transportation vehicle. If that were the case, he wouldn't be able to reach it. So he needed to do something else. Bakura was right. He couldn't reach the bomb, so he needed to do something about the people.

"I think I've got an idea," He whispered to the driver. Bakura's gaze remained on the road, but a half-smirk reached his lips. It felt like that was all Marik needed to get back into his groove. He had a plan all right, and it would definitely work. He took out his cell phone.

He always had the small machine on at work, even though he wasn't supposed to, but it was silenced so no one would know about that. His boss had caught him texting once, and had threatened to kick him out. Secretly, the only reason Marik believed that he hadn't done so yet was because Kaiba was dating his sister. Hopefully, that was a good enough reason to continue preventing him from being out of a job. When Marik opened his phone, he noticed that his boss had called his several times already, and left a great number of what were most likely extremely angry voice messages.

"_Ishtar!_ It's about time you picked up your damn phone! What the hell are you doing? That stunt you pulled with the car has been all over the news for the past _hour!_ Just what the hell did you think you were doing?"

The anger that greeted Marik on the other side of the phone took him completely by surprise. He'd always known that his boss was an angry person by nature, but never before had Marik ever heard him scream like that. Kaiba usually went the tightly controlled and sarcastic route. The man had never before needed to raise his voice to make whomever he was talking to feel like a small piece of shit. He must be _really_ angry, Marik thought with a wince.

"Look, I don't really have time to explain it all right now, but I need you to call the downtown station and bring enough helicopters to pick up…" Quick count of the individuals on the bus. "…nineteen people. I know what I did was a bit unorthodox, but it was necessary. There's a bomb planted somewhere on the outside of the bus I'm on. If we go below fifty, it explodes. I haven't been able to see it, so I don't know if there's a timer, or how complicated the device is. You said that the news has been filming me, right? Then you should know where my current location is," Marik explained briefly.

"What are you talking about? You expect me to believe that there's a bomb somewhere on the bus you're riding?" Kaiba demanded. His voice was still hard and skeptical, but Marik knew just by how the volume of it had decreased that his boss was definitely listening.

"Yes, and I need you to get here as soon as possible! We've been doing fine for a while now, but we can't keep on at this speed forever. Eventually, things are bound to get more complicated than they already are, and I'd rather everyone be off this bus before that happens," Marik said patiently. There was silence on the other end. Then the noise of Kaiba setting the phone down, and yelling directions to someone in the building, telling them to call headquarters and bring in four helicopters. Marik smirked.

"We'll be there as soon as we can. Until then, don't you dare do anything stupid. Your ass is already on the line for that little stunt you pulled," Kaiba threatened. A second later he had hung up the phone. Marik put away his own and faced the passengers on the bus.

"In a few minutes, four helicopters will be arriving to get you all to safety. I will personally help each one of you onto the roof of the bus, where someone will be waiting to help get you all onto a helicopter. I'm sorry for everything that you've been through so far, but it'll all be over very soon now," He announced. Small cheer and even larger sighs of relief broke out from the group as weary smiles began to shine through the worry that had been etched onto every face. Marik took it all in with a grin. He definitely felt better now. But it wasn't because of the approving looks the passengers were giving him, or the fact that his boss was actually listening to him for a change. His happy mood now was all a result of the man sitting in the chair next to him.

"Thank you," Marik said quietly to Bakura. The driver spared a few seconds from the road to look at him. A smirk danced on his lips.

"Well if I didn't help you, we'd all be dead now, wouldn't we? Just make sure that you pay me back in full once we get out of this mess," Bakura replied cheekily. Marik's eyebrows rose.

"Oh really?" He questioned playfully. "And just how would you have me repay you back?" He found himself leaning in closer to the other man, forgetting again for the moment about the bomb and the other passengers. Upon their initial meeting, he would have never thought such an obviously irritated man would interest him as much as he did. But now he was glad that the other was here. Irritated he may be, but he was intriguing, and he'd been much more help than any other person on the bus.

"How about we go on a little outing after this is all done? Even wannabe cops and bus drivers have to eat, don't they?" Bakura questioned after checking on the road once more. Marik hummed softly and leaned against the back of the seat, draping an arm over the curve at the top. One of his fingers twirled a strand of Bakura's white locks around.

"Is a certain bus driver asking me out on a date?" Marik teased. The driver lifted a hand off the wheel and flicked Marik in the middle of his forehead, making the tanned boy pull back with a scowl and the show of his tongue.

"I don't ask people out on dates. They ask me," Bakura responded.

"Fine, then. Since you're going to be stubborn, Bakura, would you like to go out on a date with me? After all, we've got to eat, right?" Marik asked with a quirk of his head. Bakura remained silent for a moment, an expression of mock-thought on his face, lips pursed and everything, before he let out a long drawn-out sigh.

"I suppose I can do so. But first, you've got to concentrate on getting us out of here," He said seriously. The merriment faded from Marik's own face some as a sigh of his own escaped his lips. It was so easy for him to forget that they weren't out of the woods yet. He loved having Bakura here to mess around with, but the man made it so easy for him to stop paying attention to the rest of the world around him. He wondered if that was a good thing.

"Those helicopters should be coming soon. Just keep above fifty, and we'll be off this thing in no time," Marik said. Bakura nodded, and finally directed his gaze back onto the road (Just in time to avoid taking an exit off the freeway, too). Marik finally stood up from the driver's seat and began to pace the length of the bus. He checked his phone, but he hadn't gotten any further calls from Kaiba. He'd placed the call to him about fifteen minutes ago now. The helicopters should be on their way here soon.

Soon, this entire ordeal would be over and done with. He would get yelled at by Kaiba, because even though he'd just saved the lives of nearly twenty people (himself included), his boss would still find something to bitch about. Like how he blew up a cop car. After he got reamed a new one from Kaiba, he'd have to deal with his sister, too. No doubt she had caught wind of the stunt he'd pulled if Kaiba himself hadn't told her, and was on her way here now, even if it was dangerous. She'd yell about how foolish he was, and how he never thought about his actions and didn't worry enough about the consequences, and then she'd probably break down and cry about how worried she'd been while he held her awkwardly in his arms. Marik didn't want to deal with that.

What he _wanted_ to do was go on that date with Bakura. It wouldn't be anything impressive, not on the salaries of a wannabe cop and a bus driver, and it wasn't like the entire thing had been anything but spur-of-the-moment planning, but Marik couldn't help thinking it would be perfect either way. A great end to a so far horrific day, and who knew what the night would bring? Marik couldn't prevent a huge grin from spreading across his face at _that_ particular thought. Marik had noticed his companion's looks the moment he got onto the bus, but with insults flying out of that pert mouth every five seconds and a bomb to look for, Marik hadn't exactly been putting much thoughts into the looks department. Now though, he could definitely appreciate such things. The majority of the day was shit, but at least Marik got lucky in some ways. He would have thought he'd snag a date on a bomb-ridden bus?

Further contemplation on the workings of the universe was cut off b the unmistakable sound of chopper blades. Marik's face lit up, and before anyone could ask him any questions about what was going on now, he had climbed onto the seat nearest the emergency exit and poked his head out the top. Coming in from behind him were four helicopters. The first one in line was closing in now. Sitting in the front seat was none other than Marik's boss, Seto Kaiba himself. The man wore an impressive scowl, all at once managing to make Marik feel like he were scum on the underside of the man's shoe and the most important fool in the world right now. Despite all this, Marik grinned away. The arrival of Kaiba meant that this would soon all be over. Once the helicopter got in position overhead the bus, Kaiba's cold blue eyes gestured downward, and then he ran a finger across his neck and looked directly at Marik. Marik just grinned and gave the man a thumbs up, then let go and dropped back down into the bus.

"All right! The helicopters are here and ready to get everyone to safety. So one by one, I'm going to help you get onto the roof, and from there onto the helicopters. So everyone get into a line, and no panicking! Everyone will get out. Bakura, you just keep driving, and try to remain steady!" Marik called out over the hushed whispers that had broken out.

"Aye aye, boss," Bakura called back sarcastically, but did as he was told. Marik helped the first person up—an older woman with her grandson—with the help of one of the male passengers on board. He climbed up through the exit and helped pull the lady onto the roof, and from there onto the rope ladder that dangled from the helicopter. The machine was as low to the metal roof of the bus as it could be, yet the wind from the blades still made the ladder unsteady. Marik held the bottom of the ladder as tightly as he could to prevent it from moving, although the elderly woman still clung to it as if her very life depended on it. She moved painstakingly slow, but eventually climbed high enough so that Kaiba could help her onto the helicopter.

Next after her came her grandson, who looked to be about eleven. The kid thought the entire spectacle was just about the coolest thing ever, and his enthusiasm had to make Marik laugh. No doubt he would be bragging to all of his friends when he headed off to school next. He was a little unsteady on his feet as well, but under the watchful eyes of both Marik and Kaiba, the boy made it to safety.

After the boy came another woman, and then a man, and another and another, until finally there were no more left but for the man who had helped Marik lift the other passengers to safety, and himself and Bakura. Marik watched the man climb the ladder to the forth helicopter, and gave him a small wave as he left. He jumped back down into the empty bus then, and headed straight over to Bakura.

"So what do we do now, smarts?" Bakura asked, eyes trained on the road.

"Well…" Marik mused, "I guess I haven't really thought of that yet." Bakura spared him a glance to show just what he thought of him before turning back to the road. Marik marched toward the back of the bus, trying to think of some way to get the both of them out of here alive. If the bus went below fifty, it would explode. Bakura needed to keep his foot on the gas pedal to prevent that from happening. If he left to escape onto the helicopter, their speed would drastically fall, and the bus would explode. Most likely, with them still stuck on it.

"We need something heavy to act in place of your foot and keep the gad pedal down," Marik announced. "Do you see anything we could use?" He looked around the bus himself, but nothing seemed to jump out at him. None of the passengers had left anything onboard, and anything metal and heavy that they could have used was part of the bus.

"You think this would work?" Bakura called out. In his hands he was holding a super sized cup of pop from McDonalds.

"Well I guess that would work. But we'd need something to put it in, so it wouldn't fall over," Marik answered, frowning slightly. He hadn't exactly expected a cup to save them both. Or the boot that Bakura was skillfully managing to pull off his left foot, all while keeping one hand on the wheel. The cup went into the boot with some effort, and then the boot was placed on the gas pedal. Hesitantly, Bakura removed his body from the seat, and both boys stared at the boot with trepidation. The bus continued on straight, and the speed decreased only slightly.

"All right, looks like this is our ticket out of here then!" Bakura exclaimed. His brown eyes twinkled as he laughed. Marik didn't really know what he had to laugh about just yet. The two of them were still stuck in the bus, and even if they did manage to get out, there was still the matter of the bomb. Maybe he was just happy to finally be out of his chair. Either way, Marik found himself joining in this laughter. The man was irritating and obnoxious (or at least he seemed that way), but he could be quite cheerful as well, as Marik found out.

"Come on, time to get out," The wannabe cop chuckled. He grabbed onto Bakura's hand and led him to the seat under the exit. The two climbed out onto the roof, and after a small debate as to who would go first, Marik held onto the bottom of the ladder for the last time as Bakura climbed up into the helicopter.

Just as he was about to climb on after, the bus shook under Marik's feet, and to his horror, began to slow down.

"Marik! What was that?" Bakura yelled from the helicopter, voice barely audible over the roar of the blades.

"Tell the pilot to get the hell out of here! The boot fell!" Marik screamed back. A foreign look passed over Bakura's face for a second, and then he was gone, presumably telling the pilot exactly what Marik had said. Marik himself jumped onto the ladder, and began to climb as quickly as he could. An instant later, the helicopter was flying away from the bus, and the ladder was streaming out behind it. Marik gripped onto the rung above him as tightly as he could.

"Marik!" Bakura screamed. Marik looked up to see Bakura leaning as far out of the helicopter as he could, arm outstretched to help pull Marik up. The blonde pulled himself up another rung, and then a second, before he was able to reach Bakura's arm. He grabbed it with both hands. The moment their palms touched, Bakura started to pull, and in a second he had yanked Marik into the helicopter. The two of them crashed against the far end of the vehicle.

"Oww. You're pretty heavy, you know?"

Marik lifted his head up from the soft surface he was lying on and saw Bakura looking down at him. The other man had his arms around him, and his chin propped up on his shoulder. The beginning of a bruise was starting to form on the underside of his shin, and Marik wondered how that had happened.

"Well it's not like I asked you to cushion my fall, you know," Marik said.

"Couldn't have my date winding up in a hospital, now could I?" Bakura questioned, quirking an eyebrow. Marik stuck his tongue out at the other man and pushed himself to his feet. He offered a hand to Bakura and helped pull him to his feet as well. The two of them looked out the window as the helicopter flew further away from the bus. The transportation vehicle had rolled to a stop, much to the displeasure of the people stuck behind it, but it was still completely intact. Nothing had exploded.

"Wonder why that is," Bakura mused beside him. Marik said nothing in response, just watched the bus get smaller and smaller. When the helicopter landed next to the three that had come before it, Marik waited for the other passengers from the bus to get off before he left Bakura's side and hopped out himself. Bakura trailed slowly behind him, but for once the driver wasn't on Marik's mind. There were a few other things he had to deal with first.

"Ishtar," Kaiba greeted coolly. His calculating gaze rested briefly on Bakura, who stood behind Marik, arms crossed over his front, before resting on the wannabe cop himself. "I am going to give you five minutes to explain why you did what you did, and then I am going to decide whether or not I should kick you out of my department right this instant."

So Marik explained. He told his boss about the call he'd gotten from the mystery man, how there hadn't been anyone else there at the station, and how he'd thought that the best option would be for himself to go to the bus and figure out the problem. He apologized for the blown up cop car and said that he would take all responsibility for the damage done, but it was the only way he could think of to get on the bus. Then he explained how he had searched every inch of the bus (Bakura vouched that this was indeed so, and only exaggerated just a little bit), and upon not finding the bomb anywhere, he had called up Kaiba and waited for the helicopters to come.

"Get someone ever there to check that bus out. I want every inch of the bottom of that bus gone over thoroughly. Take the damn thing apart if you need to. Get another person to sanction off the area and control traffic," Kaiba barked to a nearby officer. The man yelped and straightened, then threw a salute and was off.

"As for you." Marik unconsciously shrank back. Ohh, here it came. The reaming of a lifetime. Instead of growing even colder, Kaiba's eyes softened (well, as much as they could, anyways), and he ran a hand through his perfect chestnut hair.

"Go see your sister. She's been worried sick about you," The man said, pointing to his car at the back of the rest of the squad cars. Marik almost laughed at the look on Kaiba's face, before he remembered that the man was still his boss, after all. Even the all-important Seto Kaiba was not unaffected by Isis's ability to worry like no other.

"Yes sir!" Marik said. Kaiba merely rolled his eyes and walked away.

"Lucky you, you get to meet my sister now. Don't tell her about anything that happened," Marik stage-whispered.

"Yes sir," Bakura mocked. Marik stuck his tongue out at the other, then grabbed his hand and started walking, every now and then dodging a car that was still left traveling on the highway. The moment he got within view of his sister, Isis let out a yelp and hastily ran over to her only brother. Bakura was more or less pushed to the side by the overprotective sister as she began to inspect her brother for any and all injuries.

"Marik! How dare you go off and do something so dangerous? Do you even know how worried I was?" Isis shrieked.

"Well I've got an idea…"

"I forbid you to ever do something so dangerous again! You could have been killed! Did you even think about what could have happened if you hadn't been able to get onto that bus, or if you had forgotten your phone at home again? You should have called someone! Kaiba would have been more than willing to go with you to see what the problem was! And what happened to your finger?"

That last part actually grabbed Marik's attention from the drama that was going on at the bus. He was busy wondering why the thing had yet to explode, figuring that Isis would have to run out of steam sooner or later. Then she'd mentioned something about his finger, and he suddenly remembered that the thing _hurt_. He looked down at his right pinky, and discovered that in the time that had elapsed between his jump to the bus and to where he was standing now, the entire finger had swollen and turned an ugly blue and purple color.

"Oh. I think I broke it," He announced casually. He didn't particularly think it was that big of a deal, but to Isis it was the last straw. She whipped out her phone faster than Marik could pull his gun from his holster (if, you know, he actually had one) and had called up an ambulance. Seeing as most ambulances were already rushing towards them now that the passengers had been removed from the bus, it only took a few minutes for one to get to Marik's current position. During that time, Marik had tried to convince his sister that he really didn't need to go to a hospital, but she was not having any of that. And so away to the hospital he went. Isis followed him in the ambulance and lectured him on never doing something so stupid ever again.

Marik wasn't sure what had happened to Bakura. While waiting for the ambulance, he had tried to introduce the driver to his sister, but she had left no opening in conversation for him to do so. Then, before the ambulance had driven away, he had again tried to speak with the driver and get him to ride in the ambulance with him, but Isis would not stand for that either. The two siblings had driven away and left Bakura standing there, much to Marik's displeasure.

He was lying in a hospital bed now, dressed in one of those silly gowns they had with a splint over his pinky finger. He thought it was all a bit extreme, but Isis had insisted he get checked out to see if anything else was broken, and the hospital staff had apparently agreed. Marik could care less. All he could think about was Bakura. He had left the man behind, and he didn't even know anything about him. All he knew was his first name and his occupation. He didn't have a phone number, or any way of getting in contact with the man.

"Just my luck," Marik scowled irritably. Even the only part of his day that had actually seemed good turned out to not even matter.

A knock on the door interrupted Marik's thoughts. He sighed and told them to come in. Probably just another nurse here with another test to administer.

"I didn't know what you wanted to eat, so I just got you a ham sandwich."

In walked Bakura, carrying with him two plastic-wrapped sandwiches. He threw one at Marik, but the boy was so surprised he didn't even lift a hand to catch it.

"Ba-Bakura! What are you doing here?" Marik asked in surprise. Bakura raised an eyebrow at him.

"Did you forget that we had a date? We were supposed to go get dinner. Even wannabe cops and bus drivers gotta eat, remember?"

"Well yeah but, how'd you find me?" Marik asked. The bus driver laughed and sat down on the bed alongside the other's legs.

"It wasn't really that hard to find you. I knew you were being taken to the hospital, so all I had to do was search for whatever room you were in. That was a bit more problematic, seeing as you aren't supposed to have visitors until the staff is sure you're okay. Like I was going to allow something like that to stop me. Besides, you're fine," Bakura scoffed. He opened his sandwich and took a bit out of it, chewing thoughtfully.

"I'm glad you came. I was worried I wouldn't see you again," Marik confessed. Bakura looked at him and swallowed, then grinned devilishly. He leaned in close to Marik, close enough that the other boy could feel his breath caressing his lips.

"Miss me that much?" The driver asked lowly.

"I wouldn't have wanted to be on a bus with a bomb with anyone else," Marik replied. He felt Bakura's breath become hotter as the other male moved closer. Marik's eyes slipped closed as he waited for the distance to disappear. His lips grew hotter and started to tingle in anticipation. He leant forward himself, so that skin grazed the foreign skin of another. And then… Bakura suddenly pulled away.

"Oh shit! I almost forgot to tell you! Man, you're going to be pissed!" The driver announced. Marik opened his eyes and glared at the other. Bakura seemed oblivious to it.

"I heard it on the way over here on the radio. It looks like the call you received was a prank or something. There never was a bomb on my bus! All that shit you did was for nothing!" The white-haired male cackled. Marik stared. And stared. And stared. Kaiba had never found anything? There wasn't a bomb on the bus?

"Hey? You okay?" Bakura asked. Marik turned to the man and smiled.

"Not really. I banged myself up and destroyed a patrol car all for nothing. I'm probably going to get fired from the job I don't even actually have, and even if I don't, Kaiba will never let this go. On top of that, even if the doctor does tell my sister that I'm perfectly okay, other than my finger and some bruising, she's not going to let me out of her sight for at least a month. And none of it even mattered!"

"Well at least you got a ham sandwich out of the entire thing," Bakura remarked casually with a shrug.

"I'm a vegetarian. I don't eat meat," Marik said bluntly. Bakura stared at him.

"Fine then," He said with an eye roll. "At least you got a date with me." Marik thought about smacking the driver in his face for saying something so egotistical, like a date with him was the highest of his concerns, then thought about it and decided it was true.

"I suppose you've got to look for the silver lining," He sighed. "Just next time, remember to get me some food I can actually eat, okay?"

"As long as you don't do something stupid and make me go to another hospital," Bakura argued. Marik rolled his eyes and yanked the other male down to the bed with him, then silenced him with a kiss.

* * *

><p>Yay <em>Speed<em>-based fanfic! Quick question: Can anyone tell that I had no idea what I was doing while writing this? Because I didn't have any. Yay for BS-ing EVERYTHING.

Also. I was talking to my friend about how to get Marik onto the bus. In the movie, Keanu Reeves's character jumps from his moving vehicle onto the bus, but I didn't have someone to drive for Marik while he took his flying leap, and I thought that was a little too extreme for him. So my friend suggests to make him drive his car up a cliff, jump off the cliff, and reach the bus that way. Which is probably even more extreme! But she also said I should make Marik break his pinky finger, that way things were still realistic. And that's the lovely story behind that particular scene.

One little hint for chapter seven: Flash Friendship Mob. Ponder that. Sleep on it. Wonder existential questions about it. You'll read it next Friday. Until then, hope you enjoyed the chapter, and please remember to review! Thanks!


	7. Gotta Catch My Bus, I See My Friends

Yo peeps! Chapter seven, here we are! They're slowly decreasing in size again, thank goodness.

**Dislaimer:** I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or the song "Friday." No suing.

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><p>Chapter Seven: Gotta Catch My Bus, I See My Friends<p>

"FLASH FRIENDSHIP MOB!"

The terrible words were still ringing in Marik's ears, even though they had sounded and scared him nearly full out of his wits at least five minutes ago.

All in all, it had been a pretty normal day for one Marik Ishtar. He'd spent the previous night killing zombies on Black Ops and trolling other players until the wee hours of the morn, before finally turning off his 360 and passing out half off his bed, sheet only covering his midsection. Some hours later, his sister had woken him up by opening his door and informing him that it was already three in the afternoon, and just because it was the winter break didn't mean that she was going to let him waste all day doing nothing. Marik said something intelligent and witty like "What time'sit?" To which Isis responded by giving him a cold glare and shutting the door behind her with much more force than was necessary.

After his rude awakening, Marik dragged himself out of the bed and into the bathroom, where he awoke himself with a cold shower. He wrapped a towel tightly around his golden locks to dry them, and then headed back to his room without bothering to fish out a second to cover the rest of himself. If Isis happened to be rummaging around somewhere upstairs and saw she something she really didn't want to, well, it seemed like just deserts. After dressing, back into the bathroom it was to dry his hair and style it, then meticulously apply the kohl around his already stunning eyes, to give them that extra oomph.

Once sufficiently glamorous enough, Marik had descended down the stairs to the kitchen and ate whatever Isis had prepared for breakfast hours earlier. After that, his sister had handed him a note with groceries and told him to go pick them up at the store. And so with another yawn, Marik had taken the list and put on his favorite lilac coat and matching stripped scarf, then had gone to collect the groceries. He'd been standing nonchalant at the bus station, waiting for the hulking vehicle to arrive and minding his own business when he was attacked.

For the longest time, the young Egyptian hadn't a clue what was happening to him. All he knew was that in one minute, he'd been standing alone at the bus stop with a bag of groceries in each hand, wondering when the damn thing was finally going to get here because it was starting to grow cold, and then in the next he was boxed in on all sides by bustling, constantly moving bodies and loud voices. For a while he'd just let himself be carried along by the crowd, so startled was he by this sudden and completely unexpected turn of events. Then he'd finally come to his senses and started trying to find out what exactly was going on.

"Hi there! My name is Anzu Mazaki, and I'm going to be your friend!"

A chipper brunette had just hopped into Marik's line of sight, with a smile so bright it reflected the meager light from the sun even more so than the insubstantial snow did, but blinded Marik all the same. She had somehow mastered the art of walking backwards in the huge crowd, when Marik had yet to master that of even walking forwards without stumbling, and was now keeping pace with him, and obviously waiting for him to say something in return to her one of a kind greeting.

"Hi, I'm Marik Ishtar, and what the fuck is this all?" Marik responded with a growl. So maybe it wasn't the best way to start a conversation with a girl claiming that she wanted to be his friend, but he had perishables here!

"I'm glad that you asked! You've been selected to join in our flash friendship mob!" The girl exclaimed happily. Her head cocked to the side in what she thought was probably a cute matter, and maybe it would have been if Marik weren't too busy wondering if the girl was some kind of customer service robot.

"A what?" He asked.

"A flash friendship mob! It's just like a normal flash mob, but full of friendship!" Anzu explained with a smile.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't flash mobs supposed to like, dance and stuff? Everyone here just seems to be walking," Marik pointed out softly. The girl didn't seem to be all together, and obviously had no clue herself what was going on here. The poor chick had probably just been picked off the street like he had been, and was now piecing together what she knew in any way that she could. He didn't want to ruin her delusions, but he needed to figure out what was really going on and get out of here.

"Oh, well the flash mob part is already over. You see, a couple of friends and myself all thought it would be totally cool to get a large group of people together and break a world record! So we made an event on Facebook for a flash friendship mob scheduled to meet today, and luckily everyone showed up and we broke it! Now we're trying to break the record for largest friendship hug, but we don't have quite enough participants yet. So we're trying to find all the volunteers we can to increase our numbers and break it!" Anzu explained with a smile. Marik was really starting to get freaked out by those.

"But I didn't volunteer for anything," Marik pointed out. "I need to get home and give these vegetables to my sister to make dinner with."

"Oh, don't worry! We'll be done soon!" Anzu said cheerily. Marik sighed and shook his head, running a gloved hand through his blonde hair. He didn't want to get rough with this girl, but he _really_ didn't have time for this foolish friendship mob or whatever. He and a few buddies were supposed to all go on Live and play today!

"Look, that's great and all, and I hope you guys succeed or whatever, but I really need to go, got it?" Marik asked. He waited as patiently as he could for a response from the girl, but she just smiled that freaky smile at him without saying another word, like her robot batteries had died or something and left her in that state.

"You're not going to get out of here that easily," A deep voice spoke up from Marik's right

"Huh?"

"I said, you're not going to get out of here that easily," The man repeated with more than a touch of annoyance in his tone. Marik turned away from Anzu—who was _still_ smiling at him—and angled his body toward the direction of the man's voice. The crowd propelled him forward at a slant, allowing him to move close enough to the man that had spoken to him so that they were in step with one another. He looked like a teen, probably around the same age as Marik himself, with hair the color of the snow, but significantly more messy. He was wearing a long black trenchcoat, opened up to reveal a white-and-blue-striped shirt underneath, and a light blue scarf around his neck. On his face was a smirk that spoke of amusement, but the rest of his expression showed irritance.

"And how do you know that?" Marik asked, finding himself interested to hear what the other had to say. Whoever this person was, he looked like a normal guy, not a friendship drone like Anzu.

"I've been trying to get out of here for an hour already. They speak of friendship and hugs and all that, but that turns around in an instant the moment someone tries to leave their creepy cult," The man scoffed. He gestured to a blonde wearing a large smile freakishly similar to Anzu's, who was staring at Marik's new white haired friend with interest.

"That's Jounouchi Kastuya," The male beside Marik introduced with a grimace crossing his thin lips. "He's my _friend_. When it comes time for the big hug, he'll be the one I kill for trying to touch me." The amount of disgust and venom coming from the other's voice was enough to make Marik break out into laughter. Luckily enough, he managed to control it, letting only a chortle slip past. Somehow, he got the feel that his new companion wouldn't appreciate being laughed at much.

"I tried to fall to the back of the crowd and slip away, but the moment I got close _he_ grabbed my arm and dragged be back up to the front, all the while wearing that insane smile. Apparently, as long as they're still cheerful while holding the lot of us here against our wills, they get to be classified as '_friends_' instead of dictators," The teen scowled.

"So I take it you aren't too happy about our current predicament either then, hmm?" Marik questioned smartly.

"Hell no!" The other shouted. He gave Marik a look like he thought _he_ were the crazy one here, friendship robots and all. "All I did was have the misfortune of going out to get the mail for my dear, sick brother." To prove his point, the other pulled out a wad of envelopes that had been stuffed into the pocket of his trenchcoat.

"He would have just loved this all, let me tell you. Would have fit in perfectly with the friendship loonies," The other teen scoffed, giving an eye roll for good measure. "So how did you get stuck here…?"

"Marik. And my sister made me go shopping for groceries," Marik said shortly. He brought the bags up for the other to see. The movement caused him to bump into someone in front of him, who stumbled and then bumped into Marik. His pale companion grabbed a hold of his arm and steadied him before he could go under.

"The name's Bakura. And you might want to be a bit more careful here. It would be a shame if the only other normal person here were trampled," The teen said sarcastically. Marik bristled with embarrassment and yanked his arm away from the other.

"Well thanks for the help, _Bakura_," He spat, "but instead of looking out for me, shouldn't you be trying to escape again?"

"Oh, I am," Bakura answered with a smirk, his brown eyes dancing mischievously. "If two people try running instead of just one, their odds are bound to go up. Maybe one of us will get lucky." A smirk of his own spread Marik's lips, and he found himself nodding. Both teens slowed down their pace and let the others in the huge crowd pass them.

"Well _Marik_, good luck to you," Bakura said after the white haired teen had deemed them close enough to the edge. And then without another word, he turned around and bolted.

Marik didn't have time to watch him go. He also turned around and started blindly running for what he hoped was the edge. A teen bumped into him and was sent tumbling to the ground. Marik stumbled back a few steps, but luckily stayed upright and continued to run. His grocery bags swung back and forth in front of him, banging into the legs of others right and left. One finally broke open, spilling tomatoes and cans all over the floor. Marik swore and nearly stopped, impulse telling him to pick them up before they got bruised or squashed, but he shook his head to rid the thought and kept running as fast as he could against the opposing force of the crowd. He could go back and get more groceries if he got out!

The second bag flung out of his hand when he ran headfirst into a heavyset man. The plastic bag flew overhead in a shimmering arc, spilling corn and onions and celery and leeks onto the unknowing flash mobbers. Marik was distracted by its path for only a few seconds, but it was enough. In an instant he felt icy claws latch onto his arm and drag him forward with inhuman strength. Before he knew it, he was once again staring into the super happy, smiling face of one Anzu Mazaki.

"Oh Marik, you silly! We're not haven't gotten enough people! You can't leave yet!" She chided. Her finger wagged in front of Marik's face, and he felt like a child being scolded all over again, only Isis would have done so with a frown marring her tan feminine features, while Anzu was doing so with that huge smile of hers.

"Oh look! Jou has come back with your friend! Why don't you go talk to him again for a while?" She suggested happily. Jou had indeed come back with his "friend." Bakura had been no better off in his escape than Marik himself had, but he was not making it anywhere near as easy to be dragged back into the clusterfuck of people. Bakura was biting and hissing like an angry cat about to take a bath, while Jounouchi continued to drag his unwilling captive forward with a smile, completely oblivious to it all.

The cat analogy worked even better than Marik thought it would, for Bakura, who decidedly was very feline in both appearance and stature, was also sopping wet. Or at least his hair was. He must have taken a spill in his escape, for chunks of semi-melted snow still clung to the white locks, almost indistinguishable from the hair itself. From the glare he was giving Jounouchi, it looked very much like he would enjoy nothing more than to sink his claws right into the tender flesh of the man's neck. Before Marik could seriously start to worry for the blonde's health, he released Bakura, and the very irritated teen made his way over to Marik, albeit quite slowly due to traffic.

"This yours?" He asked with a growl, and dug deep inside the pocket of his coat to hand Marik an ear of corn. Marik dumbly accepted the vegetable, and then before he could stop himself, burst out laughing. Bakura didn't seem to like this at all, but Marik was unable to stop, even when the other teen glared at him fiercely enough to make a lesser man wet himself. Marik knew he should be laughing, but he couldn't help it. What in the world were the odds that his groceries would actually hamper Bakura's efforts at escape?

"Well I'm glad to see you find the entire thing hilarious," His companion uttered with a poisonous snarl. "That damn vegetable of yours hit me right on the head. And then, lucky me, I slipped on a patch of ice and _that_ dunderhead managed to grab me and haul me back here." Another gesture to Jounouchi, who continued to smile without a care in the world, despite the killer look he was receiving. Must not have noticed.

"Oh! Oh jeez! That's just too fucking bad for you, isn't it? Someone must really want you to be in this thing!" Marik laughed.

"Well it doesn't look like _you_ did any better," Bakura pouted. That thought sobered Marik up, and his laughter ended in a frown. Bakura looked at him sideway, mouth twisted curiously in some undistinguishable emotion. He sighed an instant later and forced out a slanted grin.

"Oh come on, it's not _all_ that bad. At least you still get to hang out with me," He announced. Marik grimaced.

"Oh yeah, because that's my idea of a fun afternoon. If I had wanted to hang out with a creampuff like you, I could have gone on my Xbox and found some loser kid to tease," The Egyptian teen scoffed. A look of mock-hurt passed over Bakura's face, easily readable as he pouted again.

"Well fine then. Maybe I'll go find someone who appreciates my company" Bakura sniffed. And then before Marik could say anything to prevent the one person he knew in this mess of seething bodies from leaving, Bakura was gone, just like that. He slipped away into the space between two passing people, and Marik was left all alone in the crowd.

For a while he didn't really know what to do. Bakura had left so suddenly, that he couldn't really comprehend the fact that he was gone. So Marik just let himself go with the flow, and move forward with the rest of the crowd. Everyone around him was talking, and their voices made the hum of insects, indistinct and murmuring. Even with the noise of muted speech and the slap of feet against the slushy pavement, Marik still felt very alone all of a sudden.

"Dammit," He swore, and then picked up his pace and headed in the direction he'd seen Bakura take. He'd only talked to the man for a short while now, but he didn't like being here all alone, with only the smiling faces of Anzu and Jounouchi to take comfort in. Because they were actually really creepy, when a person stopped to pay attention to them and wonder _why in the hell were they still smiling?_

"Bakura!" Marik screamed out into the crowd. Over the noise of the speech of the entire mob, his screaming didn't carry much, to Marik's annoyance. He frowned and cupped his hands together and screamed the man's name again, but no white haired teen in a large black trenchcoat came out of the crowd to smirk at him. All he got was a jab in the side by some fellow mobber as he walked past.

"Where are you, you bastard?" He muttered sourly to himself. There was no way that the man could have gotten this far away from him without running. And this wasn't exactly the type of environment you could easily run in. Unless, of course, Marik was going the wrong way this entire time, and Bakura was really elsewhere.

"BAKURA! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?" Marik screamed. Several people turned to look at him as they past, and one even stopped, a young girl who was immediately pushed around and nearly fell to her feet before straightening back up. But Marik paid no attention to the damsel-in-distress beside him, because in front of him was none other than the white head of Bakura.

"Hey, hey, no reason to yell. I'm right here," The other teen remarked with a grin. Marik huffed his cheeks out and stormed right up to the man, bulldozing past anyone who was in his way. When he reached him, he grabbed his arm and intertwined their hands together.

"Oh Marik, I didn't know you felt so strongly about me," Bakura teased, gesturing to their hands.

"Shut up. I'm not holding your hand to get some sort of perverse satisfaction out of it. This is more like a parent holding the hand of their kid to make sure they don't get lost. And you _better _not get lost again!" Marik threatened. Bakura just chuckled and held onto Marik's hand a little tighter, much to the blonde's embarrassment. But he didn't let go.

"So what do we do now?" Marik asked, deciding that this was enough of the silence pervading the air between them. Bakura didn't seem to mind it much, but for Marik it was very distracting. Talking was much better than thinking, especially with the thoughts he'd just been entertaining.

"How should I know? Escape doesn't seem to be an option, unless you want to take another stab at it. Just try not to pelt me with any more vegetables, yes?" Bakura asked, and then to Marik's utmost horror, winked at him. His face was flaming before he could stop it from showing. He tried to mask it with a frown, but from the amused curl of Bakura's lips, he didn't think it worked.

"No, let's not try that again. The friendship robots will just drag us back into the pit with their smiles," Marik said. Bakura shrugged. He then growled as someone got in his way, and without a care for his wellbeing, pushed the intruder into a woman. Marik watched with disinterest as the man apologized sheepishly, and then started flirting of all things. Strange things happening today indeed.

"Well I guess we walk then," Bakura suggested. "And hope that these idiots yank enough strangers off the street to complete their stupid hug idea soon."

A scream of "FLASH FRIENDSHIP MOB!" went up all around the two as another stranger _was_ yanked off the street, and then just like that, the pace that had temporarily subsided in the crowd was picking back up. Conversation died between Marik and Bakura as both found they had nothing else to say to the other. Marik found himself looking as their clasped hands. He was wearing gloves, but Bakura had none on his own fingers. He wondered if the paler teen beside him was cold. If so, his hand felt warm enough now.

Marik wondered if he ever would have met Bakura if this crazy thing hadn't happened to the both of them. He assumed not. He didn't make it a habit to go out and meet new people, and from the complaining that Bakura had done about going to get the mail, he assumed that the teen beside him didn't either. Aside from that, the two seemed to have similar personalities. If they had met anywhere else, that would have led them to either becoming good friends, or better enemies. Marik shuddered at the thought. He wasn't sure he would want Bakura as an enemy. Maybe something good had actually come from this whole flash friendship mob spectacle. He glanced at the hand in his own again and a smile tugged on his lips, though when Bakura started to look at him he made sure it was gone. Couldn't let the other know what an impact he had on him.

Bakura was still looking at him now, and Marik wondered why. He looked like he was about to say something, and for an irrational moment, the tanned boy felt his heart spike. He inwardly berated himself a second later; it wasn't like it _mattered_ what Bakura wanted to say. Oblivious to Marik's inner debate, Bakura was opening his mouth now, foreign and unreadable emotions passing over his face, before he finally settled on one mixed with confusion and a sneer.

"Are we speeding up?" He asked randomly. Whatever Marik had been expecting his companion to say, it was safe to say that this was not it. He pondered the question for a bit. Maybe there was some sort of ulterior meaning behind it? Maybe he too had briefly been questioning the nature of their friendship? Then his brain registered that his feet _were_ moving faster, as the crowd around the two moved them all forward ts a pace much brisker than the one they'd been leisurely walking before.

"What's going on? Why are we moving faster?" Marik demanded, looking around him frantically. Everyone was really booking it now, a few steps away from straight out running, though in a few seconds they would probably close that gap.

"The hell should I know? They better fucking stop though!" Bakura threatened. He didn't seem to be the only one distressed about the current predicament they found themselves in. All around the two hand-holding teens people were shooting troubled questions, voices were raising and breaking in the sea of bodies, and the speed of the crowd overall was still speeding up, though no one really seemed to want this to happen.

A person a few bodies away from Marik and Bakura stumbled and fell to the ground. His fall freaked out the rest of the mob, and they all began to hurry up even more, like frightened animals. The eyes of the crowd faced forward, and they were all running now, running to what, no one knew, but running all the same.

Marik stumbled. Someone stepped on his foot, and he howled in pain and nearly fell himself were it not for Bakura's hand still keeping him supported. He opened his mouth to thank the teen, but everyone was talking or screaming, and he doubted that he would have been able to hear anyways. Bakura nodded like he knew what he was trying to say either way, and then faced forward and continued to barrel his way through people that weren't fast enough to keep up. His hand clung to Marik's tight enough that it hurt, but Marik was sure he was clinging just as tightly back.

A woman dressed in a hideous green coat and hat combo stumbled and fell a few spaces in front of the two. She didn't go down easily like the one behind them had, but with outstretched hands and feet, kicking at the air and looking for anything to grab onto. She found purchase on Bakura's ankle and held him still. Marik wanted to stop, crowd be damned, and help his friend out, but the momentum of his own force and that of the people around him drove him forward, breaking his hand from Bakura's with a startled cry. Within seconds he could no longer see the white hair, nor the black trenchcoat of the other.

"Bakura!" Marik screamed. "Bakur—aaagh!" A man stormed past him from behind, cutting his sentence short and nearly dislodging him from the crowd. Marik glared, but whoever had done it was already out of sight. Just like that, people were swallowed so easily by the wave of moving bodes. He didn't like it. He'd lost Bakura once before, but the bout of irrational fear that he'd felt then seemed so far away to the fear he actually felt now. There seemed to be millions of more people surrounding him, and he had no clue how far they had carried him from Bakura. What if that irritating woman had caused him to fall? What if he'd already been trampled to death under the feet of the stampeding others by now?

"BAKURA!" He screamed. If he'd been expecting the noise to bring the other to him in the same way it had done last, no such luck. Bakura didn't show up from the crowd, smirk on face with some smart comment coming hot off his sharp tongue. Bakura didn't show up at all. The only thing Marik had for company now was his increasing panic in a sea of strangers.

If he'd had been able to tell the Marik of earlier that in a few short hours he would be this worried about the life of another, he probably would have laughed and deemed himself crazy. In normal conditions, Marik didn't associate with others, and especially didn't find himself worrying about whether they were okay or not. But if Marik could talk to his earlier self now, he wouldn't tell him something so stupid. He would say that in a few short hours, he would come across one of the most interesting people he'd ever met in his uneventful life, and to make damn sure not to let him go.

Marik got rammed into hard as someone in front of him abruptly stopped. He was unable to make out the gender of the person, for all he really knew about them was that the back he'd run into was very strong. Wind knocked from his own smaller frame, Marik's pace slowed as he tried to catch his breath. He winced as he tried to breathe back in; it felt like he had bruised something. A different person banged into him from behind for not going fast enough, and their momentum pushed the Egyptian sideways and into someone else on his left. Both he and the man he'd been pushed into went spiraling to the floor. In an instant, Marik couldn't even see him anymore.

The noise of marching feet was so much stronger from here on the floor, but the sound was disruptive, raucous, the sound of panic in motion. A lot could be told about a person from the shoes they weoe, but Marik could barely bay attention to them all as they stampeded past him. Someone had lost a shoe—a woman, who'd been stuck wearing high heels of all thing—and Marik watched helplessly as another shoe crushed the heel, leaving it bent and snapped.

He tried to push himself off the wet pavement, but all he was reward with was a crippling hand injury that sent him back down to the ground. Determined, he went for it a second time, but before he could get to his feet was knocked over hard enough to make his teeth jar together when he collided with the ground.

Marik curled into a fetal position, hoping to at least keep his vital regions safe from the herding feet until he found himself safe on the outside of the flash friendship mob. All the while he couldn't keep stories of hearing about people trampled to death from entering his mind. Jut a few months ago, there'd been an old woman who'd been knocked down in a busy store. No one had stopped to help her up. No one had stopped to see if she was okay. She'd just been left there to die, much like Marik had now. He drew his knees in tighter to his chest, and bit his lip when someone stepped on his arm and nearly tripped over his curled up form. Served them right, he thought bitterly. How many people here were like him now, unable to move, being stepped on by the feet of their peers? How many people would die in this stupid mob? Would he be one of them? He couldn't move, he'd already tried to get up and failed. There was nothing to do but wait.

A body fell on top of him, and Marik winced as the weight of the person forced out the small amount of air he'd been able to suck in from down here. The moving feet disrupted the flow of air and made it harder to breath, almost as if just by movement alone they made the air thinner, or something. The person atop him struggled to move, and Marik hoped angrily that he or she would be unable to get up, would be stuck down here just like he was, to see what fate dealt him. But they didn't seem to be trying to get up. The body above him moved not like it was trying to escape, but rather accomplishing something different. Marik felt it curve around his own form, like the person was trying to shield him from the painful feet.

His eyes opened and only saw black. He'd closed them to get away from the storming feet, and to protect himself from any snow or slush that might be flung at him, but he opened them now. He could only see the black material of the person's coat, but he didn't need to see anything else to know it was Bakura. He could tell by the roughness of the man's body language, as even while trying to cover Marik's body, the other seemed unsure of how to comfort, and pulled and yanked to get himself and Marik where he wanted them to be.

Marik uncurled his arms from his body and wrapped them in any way around the other that he could, wanting to keep him close and keep him safe. Butterflies erupted in his stomach, though he really had no idea if they were because of the proximity of Bakura to him, or were nerves brought on by the situation he found himself in. Whatever the reason, Marik clung tightly and didn't let go, wanting to keep Bakura safe from harm in the same way he was trying to keep Marik safe. He felt the body above him stiffen as Bakura was no doubt stepped on, and Marik held on even tighter, even when he felt a running foot kick his shin.

He held on to Bakura for what felt like forever, but was probably just a minute as the assailing feet began to slow down. When the thudding ringing in his ears had returned to as normal a pace as the feet of who knew how many people marching together could, Marik loosened his hold. His fingers and arms felt stiff now, from how tightly he'd been holding, and he had no doubt that Bakura's did as well. The white haired teen rolled off him, and Marik finally found himself able to look at the other's face again as traffic parted for them before reconnecting again into a seamless crowd.

"Bakura…" Marik said. It was really the only thing he could think to say after having been nearly killed. He'd known that it was Bakura who had shielded him, but it was still strange to see him now sitting here in front of him, hair dripping wet from the snow. Marik supposed absently that his own was as well. To prove him correct, a droplet of water bid from the very thought dripped onto an area of Marik's skin not covered by his sopping wet scarf.

"Well come on, get up. I didn't risk my ass to help you so that you could sit here and get trampled all over again," Bakura remarked with one of his usual grins. Marik smiled back, all past fear forgotten.

"Yeah," He agreed. He wobbly stood to his feet, and offered a hand to Bakura to pull him up. Bakura grabbed with his left hand, and winced sharply as Marik pulled him forward. His right went instantly to his left shoulder, and he began to prod the area there with light, tender touches, wincing every time he made contact with skin. Marik grabbed the hand and pulled it gently away.

"If it hurts, then touching it is only going to make it worse," He explained.

"I'm only checking to see where the injury is!" Bakura insisted, sounding just like a child while doing so.

"What happened?" Marik asked. Bakura frowned, and the pain visible on his face was engulfed by anger as his brow crinkled.

"It was while I was trying to help you. Someone ran in to me and kicked me right in the shoulder. I thought he'd dislocated the damn thing, there was so much pain."

"You should probably get that checked to make sure it's okay," Marik said.

"Well maybe if we could get out of this damn friendship whatever I could!" Bakura spat hatefully, brow crinkling further. He fumed for a few seconds more before getting himself back under control and looking at Marik again. Something that looked suspiciously like concern shown in his cold brown eyes.

"You okay?" He asked. To his horror, Marik felt himself flush under the other's scrutiny. He quickly willed away the reaction through sheer force of will, and forced his face to remain impassive.

"I'm sure I'll have a few bruises, but other than that I'm fine," He said, waving away the other's question with only just a hint of pink still dusting his cheeks. Bakura didn't seem to notice it, luckily enough, as he soon turned his attention back to the front of him where they were still, as always, walking forward.

"I wonder if anyone knows what happened," Marik mused. Bakura snorted.

"I doubt it. I don't even think the friendship robots know what we're really doing here. We're all just being forced to walk like sheep. We'll probably end up all herded off a cliff," He said sarcastically. A scream of "FLASH FRIENDSHIP MOB!" went up somewhere ahead of them, near the tip of the crowd as yet another stranger was forced to join the huge mob. Marik rolled his eyes and sighed, though continued to walk. Maybe this dumb thing would be over and done with soon.

Finding nothing else to talk about, the two males continued on at their own pace, letting the crowd push them forward if they fell behind too much. Bakura kept a hand on his injured shoulder, wincing now and then if he touched it with too much pressure, or if someone jarred it while pushing past him. Marik kept an eye on him, actually a bit worried about the whole thing. He had no idea how much his shoulder really hurt, or if something had happened to really mess it up. He should go to a hospital to have it checked out, but they would have to find a way out of this flash friendship mob thing first. Trying to escape didn't seem to work, so the only option was to just wait for the friendship robots to collect enough people to reach their goal. Hopefully that would be sometime soon. Not that Marik really had plans for today other than playing more video games, but still.

He was still a little confused as to why Bakura had helped him and gotten that injury, actually. Sure, he'd been worried about the one person he actually knew in this awful predicament they found themselves caught up in, but it came as a surprise to him that maybe Bakura had been worried as well. The teen didn't actually seem like the type to really care about other people, but he must have cared about Marik enough to help him out. The thought made his stomach flutter again uncomfortably, and he tried to block it from his head. There was no reason to start thinking like that now.

He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, and constantly moving forward without tripping. No need to think about Bakura, and why he had helped him out, maybe even saved him from being trampled. _Step, step, concentrate on that, Mari_k. No need to think about how it had actually felt sort of nice, being held onto like that. _Step. Step._ No reason to remember just how worried he had been for Bakura's safety, and how he didn't really think he'd ever been so worried for another person. That was kind of strange, wasn't it? To be so worried over a friend. _Step._ Was Bakura a friend? Well they'd met under strange circumstances, but sure, he was a friend. More of a friend than the ones Marik spent his days playing with online. Those were really just people to kill boredom with, but Bakura was a bit different. _Step._ Bakura was much more interesting than any of them. He wouldn't mind hanging out with Bakura again after all this was over, not at all. _Step, step._

"Were you worried about me?"

…

_Step?_

For all the concentration Marik was doing on taking step after step forward, it obviously wasn't helping all too much. He almost stumbled forward, but a well-placed hand from his companion steadied his legs. Marik quickly hid his face from view, and with it the blush that was burning on his cheeks. He felt like falling and being trampled to death wouldn't be such a bad option right now. He _really_ had not meant to actually say the words he'd been thinking. But with the way his thoughts were going, it just seemed like the natural course of action.

"You say something there?" Bakura questioned. Marik's heart gave a terrified little leap. Maybe he hadn't heard! Maybe he could pass it off as unimportant!

"No, not at all! Just mumbled something, but it wasn't important, really," Marik insisted with a jaunty little smile. And then he opened his eyes and saw that while Bakura had managed to keep his voice level and steady, he certainly hadn't been able to do the same with his face. The amusement he felt at the question was written all over his expression.

"I wonder what made you ask such a thing. You don't really seem the type for introspective musings," Bakura teased. Marik's face heated up even further.

"Shut up! Forget I even said anything, it was stupid anyways," He yelled. Bakura's eyes closed as he chuckled darkly, and when he opened them again they were looking straight into Marik's own.

"Were you worried about me, Marik? Did you think something bad would happen? What if I told you that I was worried about you? That I probably felt the same things that you did? What would you do then?" Each question brought the pale teen's face closer, and before he knew it, Marik could feel the other's breath ghosting over his face. He gulped nervously. This was probably the closest he had ever been to another person that wasn't one of his siblings.

"I wouldn't do anything," He said, managing to keep his voice under control quite nicely for how much Bakura's proximity was wreaking havoc on his insides. The answer seemed to upset Bakura, for his face drooped a bit, and then he returned back to his own personal space beside Marik, hands in his pockets and facing the crowd ahead with an uncaring aura around him.

"Can't be too much longer 'till this thing is complete now," He announced, successfully confusing Marik with how out of the blue the statement was. Marik took a look around him though, and figured that Bakura was probably right. Their mob had been steadily increasing in size and numbers since Marik had been forced to become a part of it. It really wouldn't be too much longer now at this rate. Maybe soon he would get to go home.

Marik nodded, but didn't say anything in response. There wasn't much else to say other than agree, and he was still feeling a bit put out from the sudden switch in conversation. Although that was really his fault, for panicking as he had. But Bakura couldn't be angry with him for that! He'd never been in a situation like this before; anyone would have done the same as he! That didn't make him feel any less guilty for the angry vibes he could feel coming from the body next to him though. Must not take rejection well.

"What if I said that I was happy?" Marik spoke up suddenly. He didn't like the silence between them, and the awkward tension that hovered around in the air they walked through. Bakura's head perked up at the words, and he glanced at Marik just as the Egyptian looked away, feeling acutely embarrassed about the whole situation. He was still unsure how things had come to this point as it was.

"Were you?"

"I was."

The two fell silent, eyes locked on each other. Marik's embarrassment had died away completely, and now he was only concentrating on the situation he was in. He didn't know how he'd gotten here, but he was here now and he didn't want to back out again.

A cry of "FLASH FRIENDSHIP MOB!" went up around them once again, but the two teens paid no attention to that. They only looked away from each other when the mob suddenly stopped walking, and a deafening cheer erupted from everyone.

"All right everyone! We finally got enough people! You know what time it is now!" The voice came from a short boy being carried on the shoulders on a man with pointy hair, both of whom were quite obviously robots, if the freaky smiles they wore were any indication of that fact. Marik and Bakura faced each other and broke out into similar grimaces of disgust.

Out of nowhere, both Anzu and Jounouchi appeared from the crowd, smiling excitedly and with arms outstretched.

"Okay, on the count of three! _Three!_"

"Looks like it's finally time for this tomfoolery to come to an end. You ready for that?" Bakura questioned with a hint of a smirk.

"Yeah, I think I am. Fun as it all was, my feet are beginning to hurt," Marik replied.

"_Two!_"

Bakura took a few steps forward to Anzu and Jounouchi, both of whom smiled nicely and cocked their heads to the side in question.

"Look guys, I know you're supposed to be our friends and all, but how about you two go find someone else to hug, yeah?" He suggested. With a wink in Marik's direction, he pushed the two smiling idiots further into the crowd. "I'll take care of his hug, so you just get lost."

"_One!_"

Bakura came back to stand next to Marik, and opened up his arms widely. Marik chuckled lightly and shook his head as he took a step closer.

"You really going to do this silly thing?" He asked.

"But of course. We wouldn't want to be the two who make the group fall short of the record. And besides, you should feel special that I'm even offering. It's not like I go around hugging every person I meet in the middle of a flash mob," Bakura scoffed.

"Flash _friendship_ mob," Marik corrected.

"_FRIENDSHIP HUG!_"

For only a fleeting moment Marik watched as people all around him wrapped their arms around another in a hug. Some were awkward, as the people who found each other in the embrace of another did not know the person they touched. Others were friendly embraces with warm smiles and joking around, and others were obviously tinged with romantic feelings, as two people clung tightly together. Marik was still very much of the opinion that the entire thing was useless and silly, but even he couldn't help a soft smile from reaching his lips at the sight of so much good feeling going around.

In the next instant his lips were too preoccupied to do any smiling, as he found himself in Bakura's embrace. Bakura's body was pressed tightly against his own, in the same way it had been when Bakura had shielded his body against the stampeding feet of the crowd. His silly trenchcoat was still open, and it fluttered silently down around the two, seeming to cut them off from the rest of the people embracing on all sides of them.

Bakura's hands crept stealthily around his waist, like he was going to hug him, but then apparently changed his mind. Marik stood still as he felt those slender fingers slide up his sides even through the weight of his coat. From his abdomen they headed to his chest, and from there they encircled his neck, and came to rest against his cheeks. Marik followed their path by the trails of hot fire they left behind, but he didn't even notice when they touched his cheeks, for at that same time Bakura had pressed his strangely hot lips to Marik's own cold ones.

The kiss was harsh and eager and barely restrained. Bakura's body pressed against him fervently, and Marik found himself responded to the heat against him and within him, even while he was completely unsure of what he was doing. All he knew was that Bakura's lips moved deliciously against his own. Their bodies pressed together hard and hot, and neither wanted to move away. Bakura's hands burned against his skin, and at some point in time, unknown to Marik himself, his own arms had come to rest against the pale teen's waist, and tugged and pulled him tighter. He knew these things, and while he didn't know exactly what he was doing and why, he knew that it felt good, and so he did not protest.

He felt Bakura's tongue push hard against his lips, and he opened them without a thought to let his own tongue out, eager to do some exploring. He heard Bakura moan, and to Marik the noise was the most erotic and arousing thing he'd ever heard. His body pushed with more vigor, actually forcing Bakura to take a step back into another flash mobber. He thought he heard the person give a grumble, but the opinions of others was the furthest thing from Marik's mind right now. He wanted to get closer, he wanted to get nearer and he wanted to feel more and touch more. The eagerness with which Bakura responded went straight to Marik's head, making him heady and inebriated. Bakura wanted this just as much as he did. Bakura wanted this just as much as he did. The thought alone made him powerful and potent.

They broke apart with pants and gasps. Marik's eyes opened slowly and with confusion, wondering why Bakura had pulled away when he felt like he could have gone on forever. He only belatedly remembered that he needed to breathe.

Bakura's cheeks were flushed from their strenuous activity, as, no doubt, were his own. The man was still pressed close to Marik, having only moved his face a few centimeters away when he broke the kiss. A suave smirk rested on his face, even as he still breathed heavily.

"Much better than hugging some robot girl, am I right?" He questioned mischievously. Marik let go of his waist to give him a cuff on the head for the comment.

"Only a little," He responded. Bakura frowned at him.

"Well in that case, maybe I'll go find someone else to make out with," He said sourly, making a face. He moved to pull away, but Marik grabbed him closer.

"No, I think you'll be staying right here," He said with a grin. He wasn't about to let Bakura get away from him once again. Bakura grinned himself and opened his mouth to no doubt say something as equally teasing, but an indiscreet cough from a person nearby reminded the two males that they were still in the middle of a large crowd of people. All of who, to Marik's embarrassment, had broken away from their own embraces and were now openly staring at the two boys who had just moments ago been found in a lip-lock.

"Well this is awkward," Marik remarked. Bakura pulled away from him, pulling a frown along with him as Marik got that much colder from the lack of a warm body to cozy up with. He grabbed onto Marik's hand with the arm not connected to the injured shoulder and began pulling.

"Come on, let's get out of here. The damn hug is over, so lets make ourselves scarce before the idiots come up with yet another goal they want to break," Bakura said quietly, almost afraid that if he spoke too loudly about their escape, Anzu and Jou would show up from nowhere to drag them back into the middle of it all.

"Sounds like a great idea," Marik agreed. "Only problem is, I've got no clue where the fuck we are."

Bakura stopped. Looked around at the street and shops surrounding them, all of which were significantly clearer now that they were out of the heart of the crowd, and only a few stragglers lingered still.

"Well damn. That might be a problem after all," He announced thoughtfully. Marik sighed and rolled his eyes. What an interesting day this had been.

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><p>Okay! So I actually like, don't have anything to say here. Other than some random information, like the fact that I've got no clue if you can buy vegetables like that in the middle of winter, or that seeing as I have never been trampled myself, I cannot validate the correctness of the way I described it. But whatevs! There's actually a small, teeny tiny little thing I added in here from a previous story that took place in winter, <em>Rooftop<em>. I kind of think it would be fun to see if anyone can find it. It's not a contest or anything, but hey, why not, the first person to catch it can offer up a prompt for a lyric if they want. Whatever it is, no matter how crazy, I'll write it! Okay, that's it's then! Please review, and thank you!


	8. Kickin' In The Front Seat

Oho, out kind of early today, aren't we? Yeah that's because it's eight in the morning and I'm forcing myself to wake up now instead of sleeping until one like I really want to. Even my five year old brother is still asleep. Why? WHYYYY? Because next Friday, I'll be back in college again. Yaaaayyy. No more sleeping until one. It makes me sad, it really does. But anyways!

So this chapter is a bit strange. I sort of wrote it with on a vague idea of what I was actually doing, so while the beginning of it may seem like it's going to be funny (I like to think I'm quite adept at writing with sarcasm), the majority of it is mostly serious, and the ending is kind of angsty? But still rated T!

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh. Nor the song "Friday." I use them because it's fun, not for money.

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><p>Chapter Eight: Kickin' In The Front Seat<p>

Most. Fucking. Awkward. Drive-In. _Ever_.

Marik had just recently been introduced to movies. That might sound strange to the majority of Earth's population, but then, they hadn't been literally living their lives under a rock. Or, in Marik's case, an old tomb in the middle of Egypt. Details, details. Either way, Marik had seen his first movie only a few months ago. And he'd fallen in love.

To him, movies were something magical, something to be treasured much more than the memory of the Pharaoh that had been quite painfully engraved into his back as a child. For a blissful hour and a half, Marik could forget that his life up till this point had sucked pretty bad, and that he was probably certifiably insane. He'd heard that books produced the same reaction, but then he'd never been one for reading. It was fun when he had a chance to actually do it, but he found it hard to sit down and concentrate on a book for extended periods of time. So to him, movies were possibly the best things ever invented by man.

Which was why when Ryou had learned that he was back in Domino after his reformation, and had invited him to go to a drive-in, Marik had leapt at the chance. Drive-ins weren't as popular in Japan as in America, but if one knew where to look, they could be found littering the mundane Japanese countryside. And anything that showed back-to-back features at a low price was as good as gold to Marik. Sure, he was a little weirded out by going with Ryou, seeing as the boy reminded him a bit too much of his old Battle City days, and he'd never once really talked to the kid, but that was apparently why Ryou had invited him in the first place. The unassuming British student's exact words had been something along the lines of wanting to get to know him, seeing as the majority of the time the two had been in contact, Ryou hadn't been the one in control.

So Marik had agreed to the outing for three reasons. One, he figured it couldn't really be all _that _bad. After all, even though he was reformed, he still found Yuugi-tachi to be quite annoying and bothersome, and seeing as Ryou was the least friendship-y and loud one of the group, it shouldn't be a problem to associate with him for an extended amount of time. Just as long as no one brought along Anzu and got that girl started, Marik really could deal with the others too, but… still, better to be safe than sorry.

Two, they were going to see movies. Freaking movies. And Marik loved movies.

Three, Isis would be happy to know he was going out and making friends. She had moved him back to Domino to be with the people that had caused such a change in him in the first place. If Marik were to become friends with the Pharaoh and his other bosom-buddies, it would only be the greatest thing in the world for her.

So on the day they'd planned to meet, Marik had revved up his motorcycle and set out for the drive-in, following the directions Ryou had given him. He would meet the other teen there, hop into his car if it were too cold to watch from the outside, and enjoy some movies. All in all, it was a great plan.

That was when he was expecting _Ryou_ to be there.

Ryou. _Not_ Bakura.

To be honest, more than once after Ryou had invited him out, thoughts and memories of Bakura had crossed his mind, along with the far too familiar feel of regret. Marik was glad that he had changed into the person he was now. The person he'd been in the past was so angry with everyone and everything that he'd almost ruined his own life, and that of the few people who actually cared about preventing him from self-destructing. He didn't desire to return to the way he'd been in the past, but things _had_ been a bit more fun then. And Bakura had been a great benefactor when it came to having fun, though Marik was loathe to admit it. One of the reasons why Isis had been hesitant to move back to Domino was because of bad influences like Bakura. However, the Pharaoh had reassured her that he wouldn't be a problem, and that had been enough to convince her.

Obviously, there had been a few things that the Pharaoh had left out. Like when he'd said that Bakura wouldn't be a problem, it was _not_ because the spirit of the Ring was gone for good, as both Marik and his sister had assumed. For there he was, sitting in Ryou's rundown car, glaring at the big screen in front of him like he hoped any moment it would spontaneously combust and give him a reason for being here. Marik was a bit surprised, to say the least. He had no idea what had all gone down when Yuugi-tachi entered the memory world, but that Bakura had planned something and obviously lost. He had thought that both he and the spirit of the Pharaoh would finally rest, but instead Atemu had decided to stay with Yuugi and his friends. Apparently, Bakura had also decided to stay right where he was, although how he had gotten the Pharaoh and Ryou to agree to that, Marik had no clue. He would have thought that everyone would agree to keeping the former tomb robber right where he was in the past.

Apparently, that was not the case. For Bakura was there, still glaring.

Marik hadn't known what to do. On one hand, it was so strange seeing his former partner-in-crime after such a long absence, and their reunion, however unknowing Bakura was about the entire thing, sparked a longing in the center of Marik's chest that he had not felt for some time. He wanted to tell his feet to move and join his old partner in the car and ask how the hell he'd managed to wind up back in Domino after his fight with the Pharaoh.

On the other hand, he wanted to march right back to his bike and get the hell out of here, Ryou and Bakura both be damned. He didn't know what would happen if he started talking to Bakura again. He didn't even know if he _wanted_ to, after everything they'd been through. And what confused him the most was what _Bakura_ could want to say to him. It had, after all, been the better part of two years since they'd really talked to each other last.

Unfortunately, before he could decide on a course of action himself, Bakura just happened to stop his staring match with the big screen and look over to his right to see none other than Marik himself. Marik stood frozen, wondering what the hell to do now. He couldn't really make out the emotions that passed over Bakura's face, but before he knew it, he'd walked right over to the old car and settled down into a seat right next to the homicidal albino himself.

And that was where Marik found himself now. Sitting awkwardly silent in a car that was a bit cold actually, wondering whom the hell would be the first to talk. He'd assumed it would be Bakura. Bakura was the one who didn't care about silly useless things like embarrassment or uncertainties. Bakura dealt with it all wearing that infuriating, unchanging smirk proud on his face. More than that, Bakura was the one who had called him here. It only stood to reason that he would be the one to explain why his presence was needed. Yet he sat there just as taciturn and transfixed as Marik himself.

Yeah, definitely awkward.

At last the two silent teens were saved from the overpowering company of one another by the start of the movie. Marik tried to pay attention to it, he really did. He loved movies, and even though this one looked like a sappy chick flick, it was one had hadn't seen yet, and anything was better than sitting here waiting for words that wouldn't come. At least with the advent of the movie, he could pretend that his attention was caught completely by the undeniably lacking acting on screen, and not by that of the silent entity next to him.

About twenty minutes into the movie, Marik began noticing some disturbing similarities between the female lead's current predicament, and the one he found himself in now. The beginning of the movie focused on showcasing how perfect and enjoyable her life was, and how happy she was as a result. And then, everything turned to ruin as the lover she'd thought had died years ago came back for a visit. Apparently Bakura (who Marik was steadfastly _not_ paying even a small modicum of attention to) noticed the very same thing as Marik himself, for he stiffened and decided that now was the perfect time to finally open up his unusually silent mouth.

"Ryou tells me you've been hanging out with the Friendship Gang as of late." The first words out of his mouth, and to Marik, they meant absolutely nothing. He couldn't stop himself from feeling disappointed. He'd been expecting more.

"What's it to you?" Marik asked with just the perfect amount of indifference audible in his voice. He still had yet to look at the teen seated in the spot next to him, and he was almost positive the same could be said of the other.

"Just thought you'd have better taste in friends," Bakura remarked carelessly.

"What, like you?" Marik spat, unable to keep himself calm after that comment. He finally turned to face the other and was presented for a second with the back of Bakura's head. Then he also turned, and showed off the snarl that was on his face.

"Why are you even here? I thought you were gone," Marik asked, cutting off his companion before he could say something equally venomous. He took a small amount of cold amusement in watching the surprise surface on Bakura's face when he realized that. No doubt, the great Bakura had never been interrupted by a mere mortal before, Marik thought bitterly.

"Please, like he could really get rid of me that easily. All I had to do was tell the lot of them that I would change my ways, and their bleeding hearts gobbled it all up," Bakura scoffed, like it should have been obvious enough how he'd gotten out of extinction. It didn't surprise Marik at all. Bakura was full of lies and sharp edged words. Bleeding heart or not, he didn't doubt that the spirit could have convinced anyone that he would act differently from this point on.

"Ryou was okay about this whole thing? After all, you're still living in his body like a _parasite_," Marik said. His lips pulled back in a cruel sneer and he glared heavily to mask the fact that he wanted to do anything but.

"Ryou vouched for me," Bakura announced proudly through the curl of his own lips. He leant back in the seat and propped his feet up on the dashboard, the perfect picture of relaxation, and without a care in the world. Marik almost believed it. But he was a bit smarter than the Marik of before who'd underestimated Bakura's trickery and believed whatever façade he'd put on. This Marik knew where to look to find the truth behind things. It was all in the posture of his recently reacquainted friend. His muscles were tight and visible, body altogether too tense to be as relaxed as he put on.

"He put on a show of making me out to be some confused victim, going on about how my past had made me the way I am now, and that it wasn't anybody's fault, but he would try to keep me on the right path from this point on. The kid's a naïve idiot, but for once it worked out in my favor," Bakura continued, eyes closing now to complete the picture-perfect image even more so. Marik remained sitting upright and calculative. No point in trying to pretend when he wasn't going to fool anyone.

"Seems like you're just as much a bastard as always," He said. Anger bubbled up in his voice. Bakura opened an eye a crack and looked at him sideways. Marik masked the raw emotion with a sharp smile worthy of a place on the lips of Bakura himself.

"Don't you like me like that?" The paler teen questioned sarcastically. Marik's smile widened while his fists clenched at his sides.

"Shut the hell up and get to the point. Because if you don't I'll just leave. There's absolutely no reason for me to want to see you anymore," He said lowly. The anger beneath the surface of his voice got the reaction he wanted. Bakura dropped the image he was trying to portray and sat up in his seat as he normally would. His eyes opened and he regarded the other curiously, with the hint of something else fading in and out of his intent expression. Something that could not be what Marik thought it was, so he put it out of his mind.

The two teens lapsed into a tense quiet long enough for Marik's attention to return to the movie as he wondered if Bakura was ever going to answer him. The heroine of the movie had turned her long-lost lover away from her door, and was now crying about him over the phone to her best friend. It was a wretched sight.

"I asked Ryou to bring you here. I wanted to talk to you," Bakura said slowly. Marik scoffed at the idea.

"You want to talk to me? If what you said earlier was correct, then you've been here since well before I got back. You didn't seem to want to talk to me then, did you? Hell, this entire time I didn't even know that you were still _alive_," He spat stormily.

"And you think I knew that you were back? I had no clue!" Bakura argued.

"Liar. The very next day after I came back to Domino, Yuugi-tachi came to my house to welcome me back. And if memory serves correct, your host was there too. He stayed in the back mostly, but if he knew I was back, you would have too."

"Well I didn't know if you would even want to talk to me."

"You're right," Marik said suddenly. The calm in his voice made Bakura quirk an eyebrow, but he said nothing. "I wouldn't have wanted to talk to you. I don't want to now. So I'm leaving. This was a stupid idea anyways."

He grabbed the door handle and pulled just as he heard the 'click' that meant it had locked shut. Marik's shoulders trembled with barely constrained anger. Bakura was playing games again, just like always, and he expected him to participate. Marik spun back around with ire in his eyes and fire in his voice.

"Open the door," He commanded. Bakura shook his head stubbornly.

"No. I told you, I want to talk to you," The spirit insisted.

"Why?" Marik asked. "What could you possibly want to say to me? You might have fooled everyone else into thinking that you're going to change your ways and stop plotting, but I know better. I've been tricked by you one too many times to still believe you. You're going to do something awful again, and I want no part in whatever it is you've got planned. Unlike you, I actually _have_ changed. I'm not going to let you drag me back down to the place I was before."

The words he said were bitter, angry, and he knew not altogether truthful. It was possible that Bakura was turning over a new leaf. Improbable, but then he'd done it, hadn't he? He expected Bakura to get angry at the statement. Hell, he _wanted_ the spirit to. Marik longed to see him get so angry that his eyes burned and flashed with all the hate he had stored up in him, and then he would tell him to leave, and Marik would. But Bakura didn't get angry. Not any more so than he already was, anyways. Instead he frowned, brow crinkling up in confusion.

"_Tricked you?_ Is that what you're getting so bent out of shape over? Because you think that I _tricked_ you?" The way Bakura said the words and with the emphasis placed on them, it sounded like not once in a million years had the thought ever passed his head that this could be the reason behind Marik's anger. It was probably the truth. Marik felt like bursting out into hysterical laughter. This entire time, he'd never even realized he'd done it, had he? It was the same thing over and over again. Nothing had changed. Certainly not Bakura.

"Yes _Bakura_, you tricked me," Marik spoke calmly.

"You got your damn body back in the end, even if I wasn't able to beat your yami! So maybe our partnership didn't result in destroying the Pharaoh, but by the looks of it, you don't even want that to happen anymore!" Bakura yelled, disgust quite evident in his tone, to Marik's amusement. "If anything, _you_ tricked _me_! You handed the Sennen Rod right over to the Pharaoh and told him the secret of the God Cards the moment he got you back in charge. That's not the way things were supposed to have gone!"

"No, it wasn't," Marik agreed. "But I'm glad that's the way things happened. If it weren't for the Pharaoh, I probably would have never gotten my body back. My yami would have hurt every single person I care about. I'm indebted to him for everything he's done for me."

"_Obviously_," Bakura said sarcastically with a sneer. "Enough so that you forgot everything you've gone through because of him. But I won't be like that. I'll never forgive him for the things he's done to me. You shouldn't either."

"Well you certainly seem to have forgotten what _you_ did to _me_," Marik countered. Once again Bakura's face became perplexed. He honestly had no idea what Marik was talking about. Marik found it hard to believe that the spirit could be so dense, but then this just served as a reminder that it apparently had not mattered even a little to Bakura, if he couldn't remember it now.

"You're infuriating! You just keep harping about how I've supposedly tricked you! There's no use in even trying to talk to you!" Bakura bellowed in frustration. Marik chose to elaborate no further. The entire conversation only intensified the dull thud of his anger, but some other part of him was deriving some enjoyment out of watching Bakura flounder. A frigid sneer curled his lips forward as the spirit grabbed at his host's hair in exasperation, then kicked the bottom of the old car.

"All right," Bakura said. "All right." He closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. When his cruel eyes opened again, they were still full of barely restrained anger and irritation, but for now at least he was no longer yelling.

"Why don't you try to explain what the hell you're talking about? Maybe then we can figure something out," He suggested. Marik closed his own eyes slowly and hummed in thought. In the background the female lead sobbed about something. She'd been doing a lot of that lately.

He didn't want to talk. He didn't want to explain. He didn't want to figure things out, because he didn't want things to _work out_. What Marik wanted to do was leave this shitty car and hop back on his baby, then drive home and maybe pester Isis to make him something to eat. But with a quick glance to the door handle, he saw exactly what he'd expected to see: it was still locked. So he would be staying.

It didn't really matter. Even if he did explain, he knew that Bakura would never comprehende. And even if he did on some small level, he wouldn't know how to "figure something out." But Marik still didn't want to discuss it. If the spirit couldn't even remember in the first place, then it was no more important to him than it was to Marik now.

"It was what you told me," Marik said simply. If Bakura cared even a little, he would understand.

He watched with something akin to fascination as Bakura's stormy expression fell slowly. His eyes softened just a little, not enough to make him look kind by any stretch of the imagination, but enough to show other emotions than the dominant one. The corners of his lips came to rest in the center of his mouth, making a straight line instead of the usual scowl. His pale cheeks huffed out just a little in a subtle sign of confusion. And then his eyes glazed over a bit, a sign that he was either trying to think, or talking to Ryou. Marik watched all of this, because he was always watching Bakura. Trying to decipher the spirit through his language alone would take decades of hard work, of analyzing and overanalyzing, only to realize that none of it mattered in the first place, because there was nothing deeper to it. He said what he meant. Words would never betray Bakura. But there was always something to learn in his body language, and Marik wanted to learn it all.

He watched as the spirit grew confused once more in such a short time span. He saw the twitch of his eyes, knew that it must be annoying for him to be so thoroughly left in the dark. Bakura was used to knowing exactly what was going on, and when and why. He could almost see the wheels turning in his head; slow and steady, like a particularly old clock that had not ceased once during its long run, and would continue to steadily chug along for many years to come. Right now Bakura would be searching through his memory logs, going through every single thing he'd said to Marik, weighing each option to come up with the right one. Marik saw the exact moment when he'd found it. He saw those dark chocolate eyes—Ryou's eyes, but yet they matched Bakura so well with how _deep_ they were—light up for only a second with some well concealed emotion. He saw the lips purse together, then twitch and form the beginnings of another snarl, before twitching again and remaining in a tight line. He saw Bakura's expression darken and his brows bunch together.

"You remember," Marik said.

"I didn't trick you," Bakura said.

"You did."

His lips pursed again as he put more thought into it. Marik watched greedily, taking in every small movement, no matter how insignificant or quick in passing. Each would be stored away almost obsessively, to be looked at later, reexamined for something he'd missed while he was so caught up in Bakura himself.

"I didn't," Bakura insisted.

"You did," Marik repeated again. "If you didn't, then maybe you would have been a little more concerned. Fuck, you were already in Egypt anyways, you could have come to see me."

"I was busy," Bakura argued. "Everything had to be perfect for when I took my revenge on the Pharaoh. I couldn't let anything distract me."

"'_Distract you?_'" Marik questioned incredulously. The statement had been like a slap in the face. And as if he'd been actually slapped, Marik found himself backing up even further from his companion, back pressing into the chilly metal of the locked door.

"You still lost! You had all the time in the world to plan your damn revenge, and you still lost! I wouldn't have distracted you any more than anyone else would have! Maybe, if you'd actually come to _see me_, I could have told you it was foolish to even try! We weren't going to beat him! We were never going to beat him! You make it sound like it was _oh so easy_ for me to just let go of all my anger and forget about the hurt he'd caused me, and be grateful for the tiny good he did, but you have no idea! You have no idea what I went through after I lost, because you were so damn caught up in your own anger and thoughts of revenge that you probably didn't even once think about me! So yes, Bakura, you tricked me!" Marik raged.

His fists clenched and he let it out all at once. All the anger he'd been holding in, all the bitterness left in him after he'd last been here in Domino, all the uncertainty and _fear_ he'd actually felt when Ryou had invited him to go to a drive-in, because the entire time Marik had known he would only have been thinking about _him_. He channeled it all and swung his fist into the first thing he saw that was not Bakura. His entire fist shot through the windshield and shattered it on impact. Cracks splintered away from the hole he'd made like webbing.

He breathed heavily, head down, bangs hanging in front of his face, moving harshly in time with his breath. There was silence but for the noise of the movie, where the woman was yelling at her lover, telling him that he should have never come back. She was in tears. The sound came in louder through the hole in the windshield. Marik's fist was still thrust through it, and for an instant he felt fuzzy, lightheaded. It cleared up soon enough. His hand was starting to hurt, pain chasing away the numb feeling that had accompanied his action immediately after he'd done it. He could feel warm liquid running down his arm.

"Ryou's going to be pissed at you," Bakura announced. His voice sounded so casual, so normal despite everything that Marik had to laugh.

"Good. Maybe then he won't invite me to things only to trick me and let you take over," He said after his laughter had ended. He flinched as he shifted in his seat to lesson the tickling sensation of the slow-traveling drop of liquid, and instead only deepened the glass that was digging into the skin of his wrist.

A hand touched Marik's own and wrapped around it gently, protectively. With a sharp intake of breath, the owner of the hand gave a yank. Marik swore loudly as the glass cut into his skin even more, but he was free from the hold of the windshield. The gentle hand returned with a second, and the two carefully wrapped a line of fabric around Marik's wounded appendage, surprisingly compassionate. The touch made Marik's heart almost stop beating. He raised his head, knowing it was too good to be true, and saw that he was face-to-face with Ryou. Bakura had fled.

He felt disappointed. He didn't know why. Gentle and caring wasn't exactly Bakura's thing, after all. Any sign of affection, and it had to have come from Ryou. Wouldn't be anyone else.

Marik knew this more than he thought the host to the irate spirit himself did. Yet he remained disappointed. He'd thought that maybe there would be something more. Bakura had remembered. He _knew_ that he had remembered; he'd seen it! Bakura had known exactly what he was talking about, and he had understood, and, and…! …Then there had been nothing. The same nothing that there always was. Marik had thought he'd known better. But here he was, getting excited, hoping, acting so foolish all over again. He'd thought he'd learned his lesson after messing with Bakura the first time. But now he was disappointed and thinking that there was something more.

Ryou took him to the hospital. Marik never got to see how the movie ended, but then he really didn't care. This particular feature had left a foul taste in his mouth. He bet that in the end, the heroine took her lover back, even after he'd been gone for so long without any explanation, and they would live happily ever after. That was how things worked in the movies. To Marik, such an ending sounded disgusting and cheap.

Isis came in at some point along with Rishid. Ryou must have come up with some excuse that didn't involve his meeting with Bakura, for his sister didn't yell or scold, and Rishid didn't look at him with silent disappointment. Marik didn't particularly care. While his siblings waited and the doctor stitched up his hand and wrist, Marik played over and over his conversation with Bakura. He listened again to the words, replayed all those small movements and analyzed them. He paid attention to the details. He searched. He poked and prodded and made assumptions based on fact. He looked for some meaning, for something more. There wasn't any. Didn't surprise him that much.

Bakura was Bakura, and the only disguise he ever wore was that of Ryou. Other than that, he didn't hide things. He didn't pull punches. He didn't leave much to the imagination. And there wasn't anything more. There never was. Marik had already known that, after all. Looking now was only a way to console himself for fucking up again.

He went home eventually. Ryou had sent him a letter. Said something along the lines of being sorry for all that had happened, and how he'd never thought that anything like this would occur. Bakura had begged him to let him talk to Marik, and Ryou had agreed. He hadn't thought it would go the way it had. He said that if Marik didn't want to see him again, he would understand. Marik threw it away.

He stayed in his room for a few days. Isis asked him what was wrong. He told her it was nothing and she left. Later on Rishid came up and sat with him in silence for over two hours before also giving up and going back downstairs. Marik remained where he was and played with the stitches splayed out across his hand.

Eventually he got over it and came downstairs. He figured that he couldn't be too hard on himself. He wasn't the only one tricked by Bakura into looking for something that just wasn't there to begin with. Yuugi-tachi had fallen for his sweet, malice-tinged words as well. Marik had just thought that he would have been better at detecting the deception this time around, and not letting it get to him. But there would always be next time. For although Marik knew without a doubt that he truly hated Bakura, if there were ever an opportunity thrust at him to sit and talk with the spirit again, he would take it. He was just a mortal, destined to make the same mistakes over and over again, and he would too, because it felt so good while he did it.

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><p>Okay, so this might be a long AN, so let's get right to it! Please remember that I have pretty much no idea how YGO ends. I doubt that the ending I portray is the correct one, so even though this isn't an AU, it's not right either! Yaaaaaay for fudging the details!<p>

So as I said above, I didn't really have a clear idea of how I wanted this to go. Like, I wrote from Marik's POV, so I wanted all those little details about how Bakura always acts in a certain way, and doesn't really "get" things, but in the ending I'd had in mind I wanted Bakura to have called Marik over to talk about the same thing Marik was talking about, so it'd be all Happy Ending! Then I wound up making Marik throw his fist into a windshield and I didn't want to end this oneshot in the hospital too, because that's totally where it was headed, and the fact that everyone winds up in the hospital probably says something about my personality. So we get angsty-ish ending! Which doesn't fit with the beginning. At all. I thought about writing a new beginning, one that's not quite so happy and humorous, but I wanted people to have access to this one too. Sticking them both in one chapter sounded too messy, and I didn't want to add another chapter because that would mess up my count, and things like that irritate me. OCD-tendancies. I kept this beginning because even though the tone and mood don't really fit, I think it does serve some purpose in creating an obvious parallel with the movie, and shows that Marik will get over things again? Question mark is there because I'm kind of pulling things out of nowhere, haha XD It does hint as some unresolved tension though, so it does it's job. Basically, I'd really like to know what other people think. Which brings me to my next point!

Please remember to review! I don't want to seem like I'm harping, because I hate those people that hold a chapter hostage until they get such and such amount of reviews, so I'll try to keep this to a minimum. But while I don't want to troll for reviews, I do like them, and I appreciate when I receive them. Reviewing on my humorous chapters is great and all, and I love hearing that people like them, but it's really chapters like this that I enjoy reviews on, because I think they're a bit more helpful. The kind of stuff I dig writing is basically this and chapter four, because I think I can do more things with chapters that are more serious and angsty. Like, in both this one and four I was trying to do something, or get across this message almost without talking about it. More so here than in four, but it was there a little. Writing funny stuff is fun, as it's supposed to be, but what can I say, I really love the angst. So please remember to review!

Okay I think that's it then! If I talk too much just tell me. I know these ANs are probably annoying to some, and shouldn't be so long, but I feel like I can't help it! Nothing else to say now except my usual. Like remark on how no one really did any kicking... Well like, I think Bakura kicked somewhere up in there, but the majority of the action was taken by Marik shoving his friggen hand through the windshield! I think it's a little extreme but I like it XD So okay! Please remember to review, and thank you!


	9. Sittin' In The Back Seat

Woot, chapter nine, up a bit earlier than usual because I already did my editing and was excited for it to go up. Back in college, yaaay. That means I'll have less time to write, booo. But anyways, here's nine, and sorry in advance for any confusion the prose may cause. Chapter isn't exactly angsty, but it's very serious. Still T though.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or the song "Friday."

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><p>Chapter Nine: Sittin' In The Back Seat<p>

He awakens. He is in bed, lying next to another. The other is still sleeping. He climbs out of the bed gently, as to not awaken the man. It is the only time he has ever used the word to describe himself. He knows he is anything but.

He eyes his own nakedness with disgust. Clothes are strewn haphazardly across the floor, like two horny teenagers had possessed the room in place of the ones that woke up in it. It is silly. It's not like the two have never done this before. There is no reason to make a mess of it. He picks up something that looks wearable, something he vaguely remembers his body having worn earlier. He doesn't remember much when he's not in control, and what he does isn't spent on useless things like clothing. His attention is on planning, on noticing small things, and wondering when the next best time to strike would be.

He exists the room quietly, without disturbing the other. The first victory he has experienced thus far. It's been a long time since he's won. His last victory seems so far away it's almost hazy. He knows that he can best the two of them, though. He's done so once before, and he'll do it again now.

He's not really sure what to do first when he's out in the living room. It's a small space, scarcely decorated with a few surprisingly humble pieces of furniture and only one window. It's not a permanent fixture. The two of them are constantly moving around and accumulating small areas like this in various countries, building up a tiny empire of spaces. "So we'll always have a getaway hideout," The spirit says. He's not really sure where he is now. How far away from Japan? How far away from Domino? When he stops and thinks, he doesn't even know if he wants to go to Domino. Would they still be there? Would anyone be there? How long has it been now since he's last had control? He can't remember. It's getting harder and harder to take over.

There's a noise from the hallway, and he is instantly alert. The sound of a door opening. He is furious. Every single time, _every single time_, it always happens like this. He looks around the cramped space he is in, but he cannot find the door. The house is unfamiliar to him. They have just moved some time recently, and he does not know where all the exits are, despite the attention he has paid to his surroundings. He cannot remember. This has been happening more and more frequently with the fewer times he is allowed out. In a second now he will be caught.

Shuffling footsteps inform him that the one he left in the bedroom is about to emerge from the hallway and spot him any second now. He could hide. He doesn't know where the door to the outside is, and he doubts that he would be lucky enough to find it on his first attempt, but there are always other options. He doesn't do anything besides stand firmly in the middle of the room for two reasons. The first is because he does not hide. He has always met every challenge that comes his way head first; it is why he was created. The second is because none of it matters anyways. This will not be the first time he has tried to escape and failed. The other already knows that he's here, knew it from the minute the spot beside him in the bed grew cold. Hiding would only delay the inevitable confrontation between the two of them, and he doesn't want that. The confrontation is something just as ingrained into this tradition as the planning and preparation that comes before it, and the faintest glimmerings of hope that escape will come after.

The spirit comes from the room wearing only unbuttoned jeans. His hair is messier than usual, and he appears tired. His other might think him cute, if the boy were awake to see. But he is not, and so all he feels is a weary tension settling around him as he assesses the man. He can see that he is not as tired and out of it as his outward appearance suggests. His eyes are sharp and focused.

They stare for some time. They wait to see who will make the first move. He bides his time. He has been in this situation many times before, and it is always this man that has stopped him from the escape he dreams of. He regards him now with a grudging respect as well as something akin to apprehension, if he could admit to himself that he is feeling it. He does not want to be too hasty in his decisions. He has finally taken control of the body, and the last thing he wants now is to be sent back to his not so peaceful slumber inside because he was too hurried in his actions to think them through. This isn't something that he's used to doing, but this man has made him learn.

"Malik," The man greets. He feels a surge of something go through him upon hearing the name. It is the closest thing he has to something being his own. He picked it once upon a time for the translation—"king"—and because it reminds him of the word "malice", something that fits so well with him. He is malice embodied, the anger of a young boy forced to endure more pain then anyone should have. It is malice that feeds him and moves him, malice that gives him a purpose. But it is malice now that is choking him to oblivion and the cause of his ruin. Without it he cannot thrive. And his other hasn't been feeling much of late.

"I'm leaving," He announces. The spirit doesn't act surprised by his stark admission. Of course, this has been his plan all along, and it comes as nothing short of expected to both.

"And what makes you think I'll just stand by and let you do that?" The other asks with a quirk of his eyebrow. Like he finds the entire situation hilarious. No doubt he does. It angers him, angers him to the point where he is almost tempted to take those few tantalizing steps forward and place his hands around the slender lily white neck of the other and snap it in two. The action would be easy, but getting close enough to actually do so would be much harder than initial appearance suggests. He knows from previous run-ins with this man that he is stronger than his lithe frame shows. Not that his muscle wouldn't win over in the end, but it would be difficult either way. He forces his anger to subside. He splits his lips into a grin that makes the spirit's own mirth fade a bit.

"Because he's asleep this time. I've been working on ways to temporarily shut off the bond between us. Your precious Marik has no clue what's going on. He thinks that he's sill sleeping peacefully in bed with you by his side," He sneers. If the other is surprised by this, he is careful to let nothing show other than a narrowing of his umber eyes.

This fact is to his advantage. Before, when he had taken over the body, his other was always awake and aware, cognizant of every action he made and idea he thought. In some ways, the bond between them was useful, such as when it allowed him to see through his other's eyes and plan his escape, but the moment he made a move of his own it became downright limiting. His other and the spirit were a nauseating team. While one worked on him from the outside, the other worked from the inside. Only now the situation was in his favor, for there was only one of them to deal with.

"What did you do to him?" The spirit questions, voice harsh. He chuckles a bit. Once this man would have been frightening. Nowhere near as much as himself, but he too has been a fearsome enemy. Now it is funny to see how weak his emotions have made him become. He would never care for another beside himself.

"Not much. You can think of it as a self-induced coma of sorts, or a paralysis. He's trapped in a quiet slumber until I see fit to wake him up. All I've got to do is keep feeding him peaceful thoughts and energy through our bond, and he'll never notice that something is happening until I cut off the supply," He explains, to the spirit's continual displeasure. He can almost feel the ire emanating off the man, directed all towards him, as if he were hoping his foul expressions could cause him some discomfort. "Things won't be so easy this time around, will they? Not without my other's incessant attempts at regaining control. You're on your own now."

"If you hurt him, I'll do more than make sure you're banished to the Shadow Realm again," His companion growls. It is meant to sound threatening, but the warning behind his words don't faze him in the least. He's been to the Shadow Realm before and returned from it after only a year. He was created from the same darkness he was banished to; coming back from it was easy enough. He is not a "yami" in the same sense as the spirit or the infuriating Pharaoh. He's never had his own body, his own form. He and his other are inseparably entwined, and as long as his other still exists then he will as well. All he had to do to return from his banishment was wait for the one who made him to feel that burning fury once more, and then the whispering voice in his head was back. The spirit cannot kill him for the same reason; if he dies, then the other he loves so much will perish as well.

"Hurt him? You mean like this?" The one thing he does know where to locate in this unfamiliar location are the knives. Everyone in the house has an unhealthy obsession with them, and he knows for a fact that his other sleeps with one under his pillow to "feel safe". He grabbed it on the way out, and now slides the stainless steel out of its leather exterior and pushes the blade tip into the pliable bronze of the skin of his arm. He makes an unexpected gasp as skin yields under metal, but the pain of the new wound does not bring it on. It is the _sensation_ he feels, the _sensation_ he has only been allowed to feel now, when he is in control of the body he shares.

The spirit does not find the same fascination in it, for in a second the knife has been knocked out of his fingers and clatters to the ground. He has not even noticed the other move, so concentrated was he on the perception of pain and that he can actually now _feel_ pain.

"_Let—him—go!"_ The spirit hisses furiously. He feels the hands of the other person in the room grab him by the shirt he wears, bunching the fabric up and making it caress the skin he now has. He feels the momentum from the muscles in the other's arms and the force of the wall smashing hard against his back. He laughs at it, because it does not hurt at all but instead _feels so good!_

"Why would I do that?" He questions after his laughter subsides. "You know what it is like to exist in the corner of some ungrateful brat's mind, forever being shut away and never allowed to actually _live_. You've felt the same thing as I. We're very similar, you and I, but yet you insist now on keeping me locked away as my other does. Only you're even more of a hypocrite than he. You _know_ what it feels like, you _understand_. I just want to live. Didn't you?"

"Yeah, I know what it feels like," The man responds shortly. "That's why I took control over my pathetic host. I wasn't going to let him ruin the first chance I've had at being happy since I was locked away in that damn Ring. Unfortunately for you, I just happen to love the same person whose body you're stealing. And I'm not about to just let you walk away with him."

He growls furiously. If there is something he hates more than being some personality defect in the other's mind, it is hearing _those words_. He _hates_ every time he hears someone mention the loathsome word _love_, especially when it comes from his other or this person. It is _love_ that is keeping him back from experiencing all this world has to offer. It is _love_ that keeps his other happy, and not full of the beautiful hate he once used to keep company with. It is the _love_ the pathetic tomb robber feels for his other that has always—_always!_—ruined everything.

He tackles the man to the floor. There is no time for thinking now. He is all action, just like he has always been action, because it is what he was made to be. His other created him to take the actions he was too afraid to, and he has always done so without a qualm or complaint. If his other and every person in this world want to hate him, it is okay, because he has always taken the moves he needs to to get what he wants. He is all action and not waiting and planning, and the planning he has done before now was only a last ditch attempt to get away, no more because there is a body underneath him and he is moving and fighting and taking the action he needs to get away and reach the escape he desires and live the life he deserves to live, a life without worrying about being forgotten and forgetting and slowly fading away until he isn't even darkness but nothingness and even the hate he is created from matters not. He will take action and fight against all of that.

He smashes the palm of his hand into the front of the other's face, grins triumphantly when he feels feeble bones give way under the strength of his brute force. There is blood flowing from the spirit's nose and from his cut arm, and it splatters on the two of them and on the floor as they scuffle, each trying to pin the other down and seek out victory. It excites him, the blood, and he fights with even more fury than he did before. He can feel the blood still in his body—his other's body—pumping through his muscles, supplying them with oxygen, feeding his fire and want. He is fighting for his freedom. He is fighting for his right to exist, a right he has more than deserved with everything he has been through. His other created him because he was too weak. He is not like the other; he is strong. He went through the painful Initiation at the hands of their father when his other could not take it anymore, he killed the man when his other quaked and shook at merely thinking the thought. He battled valiantly against the Pharaoh when his other desired revenge, and he sought to kill all the people that would stop him—them—from getting whatever it was they deserved. He has done all of this, and for nothing. In payment, all he has ever received is a trip to the Shadow Realm and the hate of the very other that birthed him. He deserves to win now, and he knows that he will. How can he not? The spirit merely fights for love, and he knows that it can never be stronger than his hate.

In direct opposition to his thoughts, he feels a stirring. His mind is focused as always on the battle in front of him and beneath him and all around him, but there is a part that concentrates on the bond, feeds his other the happy thoughts and feelings that will keep him asleep. He is consistent in doing this. Even while his malice takes control of his body and mind, he is consistent in feeding those thoughts to his little light. He knows that keeping the brat asleep is key to his victory. But now he feels his other stir, like he can sense that the spirit is losing.

"Marik!"

The spirit apparently can too, for now it is his other's name that he is shouting. This infuriates him more. It is always his other that they call for, _always!_ No one has ever once called for him, because to them, he does not matter. They wish he were gone, banished for good. They wish he no longer existed, and keep him restrained and locked up until he doesn't. He feels his other waking, faster now with the spirit's call, and he feels the urge to kill him. He has never wanted to do this before. He longs to get rid of the other, perhaps banish _him_ to the Shadow Realm, but he has never wanted to kill before. He knows that he and his other are the same person, and even if he hates him as he does, they are still connected, and will forever be. Killing him would essentially be killing himself, and he does not want to die. He wants to escape, but not die. It is only now that he thinks there might not be a difference between the two.

He lunges for the knife that has all but been forgotten in their struggle. He wanted to kill the spirit with his bare hands, but now he has a better idea. The man is distracted and the opportunity to pick it up before he can have a chance to slips through his fingertips. He grabs the knife, pushes the other off him, and stands, blade now pressed against his neck.

He watches as the other man stands, somewhat dizzy from the blood still flowing unrestrained from his broken nose. Whether it is because of the blood loss or because of the surprise at the bold move he is taking, the man's eyes widen in unconcealed shock when he registers how close the knife is to the skin of his beloved. Realizing his mistake, he narrows them quickly and takes up a stance that begets casual confidence, but he already has seen and knows that he's the one with the upper hand now.

"You planning on threatening me now with his life? I know you won't do it. If he dies, so do you," The other scoffs. His smile widens. The spirit does not yet realize that this is the plan. He comes to the conclusion without much trouble, and it enters his expression at about the same time his other awakens fully and sees the situation he is in.

He feels how frantic his other is as he quickly assesses the condition they are in. Something of him must show in his countenance, for the spirit appears that much more worried about the state of things. He feels only how great the entire thing is. For the first time in years, all attention is on him, and they are actually worried. He feels powerful, even more than he had with the God of Ra on his side. He feels now like a god himself, holding the fate of ones life in his crushing hands.

"Malik, let him go," The spirit says slowly. He shakes his head even as his other screams at him to listen. But he is listening. He is listening to what he wants.

"I don't think so. I'm tired of this. I don't want to spend my life as just some separate personality. I exist. I desire to live, not just remain locked away until no one remembers me and I fade away. I'm already forgetting things, or falling asleep and waking up with no notion of how much time has passed since I last was awake. I want to escape. I want to be. And I won't get to with you in the way, or him," He says.

"Killing yourself isn't going to get you away, you fool! You'll just be dead!"

"You died, didn't you? Yet here you are."

"And I had the misfortune of being sealed into one of the same artifact that was made with the sacrifice of my entire village!" Inside his head he feels his other flinch. The bond tells him that the spirit doesn't often talk about his past, and his other nearly wells with emotion for the man. He sneers in disgust. He doesn't want this anymore. He doesn't want to feel his other's emotions for this man, or hear his thoughts, or have to deal with any of this. Not anymore.

"From one prison into another. It's not bad, especially if I don't have to deal with you or him anymore," He says unpleasantly. His other shouts something at him through their shared bond, but he isn't paying attention to his words anymore. He shoves the knife further against the skin of his—their—throat to shut him up. He can feel a drop of what can only be blood slid down his skin. The spirit's eyes follow it before they return to his face.

"Marik, can you here me?" The spirit is looking right at him, but he is no longer talking to him, and it maddens him. Even now he is ignoring him! He points the knife tip deeper into his skin, and now a small rivulet of blood is soaking the collar of the shirt he chose to wear. The other only pays it mind for a second where his confidence falters. Then it is back, and he is determined once more. It shows in his stance and his eyes, and the turn of his face.

"There's nothing more I can do here, Marik. The rest is up to you. You're going to have to fight him."

He scoffs. He knows this will not work. He feels his other start to fight against the bindings he has him in, but his struggles are as useless and small as the flutters of a butterfly trapped in the mesh webbing of a net. He is the one in charge here, and he will not allow himself to falter. He'll kill them both before his other has even a chance to escape and regain control.

He opens up the bond between them completely. This is a risky maneuver. It will allow his other to reach him easier, but it was also allow any and all pain he inflicts on the body to reach him. His hope is that this will stop his other from fighting. He knows that he has never been one to enjoy pain. It was the entire reason behind his creation.

The plan works. As he digs the knife in deeper to his flesh, he feels the mental recoil of his other. He smirks gleefully and knows that it will be soon now. But while he has been paying attention to his victory over the rightful owner of the body he resides in, he has forgotten about the spirit, and the man's mass comes crashing down on him and knocks him to the floor. The knife is flung out of his hands and lands far enough away that he cannot reach it without moving. He tries to dislodge the man atop him, but he is stubborn, and in his stubbornness seems to weigh much more than he ever has before.

"Marik! You need to get control back! I can't hold him here forever, dammit!" The spirit screams. There is a hint of desperation in his voice that resounds in his head and reaches his other, and serves to make his fighting all the more frantic. He is being attacked on all sides now, and it is infuriating, because he fears that he will once again lose this battle.

"_I'll kill you!_" He rages. "I'll kill you and then I'll kill him too!"

"You won't," The spirit responds with all the calm of the eye of a hurricane. "You won't, because he won't let you.

"_He is nothing! He's weak compared to me!_"

He is thrashing wildly and without any sense of plan or coordination now as he feels the fight in his other increase. It is like just by speaking with each other, the two are able to give each other some strength that he lacks. He still has not been able to move the other man from atop him, and he knows that he should have been able to minutes ago. He is getting weaker. He is starting to fade with the stronger the two of them get.

"He's not weak! That's why he doesn't need you any more! That's why you never win!"

"He's weak!" He continues to rage, even in the face of all that suggests otherwise. It is like if he can win this last verbal fight, he'll win them all and finally have the freedom he desires and the right to exist as he wishes. "He's weak, and that's why he created me! Because he can't do anything by himself! Do you hear me, little light? You can't do _anything_ by yourself! You'll never get rid of me! You _need_ me!"

"Then why are you the one that's fading? Why is it that the only time you can take over now is when he's sleeping, or when something has reminded him of his past?" The spirit screams with as much strength as his body weighs down upon him with. Blood from his nose has trailed down to his lips, and it is blown at him along with the words and lands just as heavily down. His cheek crawls where the liquid has touched down. He feels like he has been infected, and something is eating away inside of him, gnawing away the tiny little bits of him that make him him and not his other. He is losing it, and he still cannot get up.

"He'll never get rid of me! I'll always be there as long as he remembers, as long as he's still afraid!"

"Then I'll help him," The spirit says quietly. The anger from his voice has disappeared and traveled all up to his eyes and expression. His tone is queerly monotone. "I'll help him get over it all. If he's afraid, then he can come to me instead of you. If there's something that he can't do on his own, then I'll help him learn how to accomplish it. He doesn't _need_ you anymore, because he has _me_. He doesn't need your hate. He doesn't need it because I love him."

The words shatter him like some centrifugal force starting in his center. His eyes widen and he feels his other burning strongly, and he shies away from the fire and the light of him. He doesn't want to go, but he's afraid. It takes him a while to comprehend the feeling, but it is an instinctual one and even creatures like him have instincts. He is afraid of being burned by that light. He is afraid and this time it is his weak, weak other that rises to the occasion. He is cast away. He retreats to the innermost part of his other's mind, the smallest, darkest part that he can find to hide away from the light. It's been slowly diminishing, his domain, but for now there is still shelter and sanctuary. He retreats here, and as he sees through his other's eyes and feels a weary smile tug on his other's lips as he looks upon the equally tired face of the spirit, he sinks into himself. He needs to sleep. He does not want to, because he does not know when he will wake up next, or if he will wake up at all. His time is short, and he knows this. Even shorter now with this crushing failure. He can feel burns all around him from the light, and it will take some time to recover. He feels so weak now. When he awakens next, will he even be able to take over once more? He cannot think now. The only thing on his mind is sleep, and he succumbs to it.

00000

Bakura sat in the bed with Marik's head resting in his lap. It had been a few hours since Malik took over, but the wounds were bandaged and the house cleaned, and Marik had finally fallen asleep. He was always mentally and physically exhausted when his other personality came out to play, but it usually took much longer than this for Bakura to finally convince him to head off to bed. Tonight was especially draining. It's the only reason he's asleep right now, and not fluttering about the house and worrying about the damage he caused, both to the house and Bakura himself.

Following his current train of thought, his eyes trailed down to the bandages covering Marik's neck. For a second, his adrenaline elevates as he remembered just how Malik had looked, standing there with the knife against his throat, blood dripping down to the floor and dyeing his skin red, but the image faded faster than he thought it would. His own nose is sore and still a bit bloody. Marik wanted to go to the hospital and have it checked out immediately, but he managed to convince the blonde hurricane that it would be better to do so tomorrow. Right now, all he wanted to do is sit here and watch Marik sleep. Of course he was tired himself, but, stupid as it was, he didn't want to go to sleep. He was still worried that Malik would decide he hadn't tormented them enough and would come back.

Bakura sighed. If he wanted to be truthful, he wasn't just tired; he could hardly keep his eyes open. But every time they closed he kept seeing Malik with the knife, but it wasn't Malik at all. It had been Malik when it happened, but he'd been able to see Marik there in his eyes. He had been so afraid, and that made Bakura more afraid than anything else that had happened. The two of them hadn't really needed to fear Malik for quite a few years now, but tonight had reminded both of them of those unpleasant days when they'd first moved away from Domino and almost every night was interrupted by a visit from the psychotic yami.

His fingers carded through Marik's blonde hair like it were made of silk. Even while the rest of him was beaten and bruised, he still had no tangles in his hair. It was almost funny enough to make him laugh for the first time since he'd gotten Marik back. He couldn't find it in him to do so, however. The event was still fresh in his mind like a newly picked scab.

For a terrifying moment, he'd been this close to losing the one thing that made him want to keep living his eternal life. In that moment he'd been more terrified of losing Marik than he had of anything else that had happened in his thousands of years of life.

"You idiot," He whispered to the mess of sleeping blonde in his lap. Aforementioned idiot squirmed in his lap, like he was experiencing a bad dream. Bakura's hands continued to soothe his hair, and soon enough all movement stopped and Marik was again dead to the world.

"You better not worry me like that ever again," He continued. "I don't think my heart can take it." If he had a heart, or course it would have decayed a long time ago. He was essentially immortal, but also just a wandering soul and nothing more. He had no body to love with except for that he stole. But sometimes he forgot that when he was with Marik, and he could almost feel the phantom organ beating again.

He bent down and kissed the other male softly on the head before sinking down gratefully into the bed. The sun was peeking through the blinds covering the windows, and in a few hours Marik would be waking up. He never slept for a long time after Malik took over. For right now though, before the flurry of activity began, Bakura was more than okay with sitting here and relaxing. He leaned back and contentedly ran his fingers through Marik's hair.

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><p>Umm, so this one's pretty cool because I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to do, but it ended up pretty sweet either way. I would definitely like to hear what people think about it, and if it's good or too confusing or whatnot. I think I messed up in tense a bit in the section at the end, because I kept writing in present tense as I had been in the first part and not past, but I think I fixed all of my mistakes. If not, then just tell me, and I'll fix it. Sorry for any mistakes though, as tense changes wind up confusing me a lot.<p>

Also, is it just me, or do all my endings suck? I swear I've forgotten how to write ones that aren't corny. Next chapter is going to have everyone dead. I'll pull a Shakespearean tragedy. Haha, noo, I don't think I'll really do anything like that XD Besides, things are already angsty/serious enough as it is. Chapter ten is also going to be in that category, but I have a feeling you guys will be excited for it ;D Well that's really it then, so bye-bye, I'll see you next week! Please remember to review, and thanks!


	10. Gotta Make My Mind Up

WHY ARE THEY GETTING LONG AGAIN? I mean, hi! Chapter's up a bit late. For the last two days I've been working on updating another fanfic of mine, so I didn't actually sit down to write this chapter until last night. And then finished it today! So this chapter is also a bit more serious, but yay, it's the sequel to chapter two! So if for some reason you didn't read chapter two, or don't remember it, go look at it real quick and then come back!

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh. Also I do not own "Friday." No siree. I guess I do own Aria and Shuu though. I don't make money off them, either.

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><p>Chapter Ten: Gotta Make My Mind Up<p>

"Can you help us out, Mister?"

He hadn't really known what exactly he was going to do when he decided to go outside, but he did know that the plan hadn't been to be intercepted by two young children looking for help. Bakura stared down at them like they were some dirt he'd gotten on his shoes. They were a girl and a boy, obviously siblings if the blonde hair and purple eyes were any indication of the fact. It was the girl who had chosen to talk to him now; the boy was holding her arm tightly and hiding behind her back like he expected Bakura to bite.

"Excuse me?" He questioned.

"I asked if you could help us!" The girl exclaimed bouncily. "We lost our Daddy and we don't know where he went. Can you help us look for him?"

Why, Bakura wondered, had these two children ever came to him looking for help? The past few years of his life hadn't exactly been the easiest: he was dirt poor and not eating or sleeping as well as he should have. He'd gone outside now to get some fresh air, and hopefully find a better job than the dead-end one he was working at the local convenience store. His customers usually took one look at the bags under his eyes and his frightful glare and made not so much as a peep until they left the store, yet here were these little children coming up to him asking for help. At least the young boy had the brains enough to be afraid. The same couldn't be said of his older sister. The girl was lost, but she didn't seem affected by this bad news at all. She was bouncing all over the place like a hyperactive dog.

"…I'm not sure I'm the person you'd want to ask for help," Bakura said at last.

"You're perfect! Please help us find our Daddy!" The girl insisted. Her brother was slowly inching away from Bakura and pulling the sleeve of his sister's shirt as he went, but the girl would not be moved. She was surprisingly stubborn for someone that could be seven years old at most.

Bakura sighed. He'd always hated kids. Luckily, they normally sensed his ill intent toward them and had the brains to stay away. This didn't seem to be the case with these children, or at least not with the girl. A person could have thought he was the kindest guy on the street with the way she was smiling up at him.

He really didn't want to do this. He wanted to just tell the brats to find some other sucker to help them search for their "Daddy" and be on his way, but something deep inside him told him to go for it. He couldn't remember ever feeling such an odd urge to be kind, at least not any time recently, but then the past few years hadn't been kind to him, either. Why help someone when he couldn't even get what he wanted? There didn't seem a point in it. But either way, something was telling Bakura to help them, something he thought he'd buried a few years ago, and he couldn't make it shut up no matter how hard he tried. It was with a disgruntled grimace that he decided to accept.

"Look kids, I'm a pretty busy guy, all right? I'll help you look for your dad for a few minutes, but after that I've got to be on my way," He said, still not quite sure why the words were coming from his mouth as he uttered them. The girl positively lit up like a miniature sun.

"Oh thank you! Shuu, come tell the nice man thank you!" She more or less screamed. The little boy, who's name was apparently Shuu, looked like saying "thank you" was the last thing he wanted to do, but his sister was adamant. She marched behind her little brother and pushed him so he was right in front of Bakura, despite his dragging feet. The kid mumbled something that sounded like "mmnkyu" and then quickly hid behind his sister's back once more. For the second time in oh-so-many second, Bakura sighed again. He asked the girl where she had last seen her father, and she pointed merrily in the location of a large open-air market, much to Bakura's misfortune. Searching _that_ entire place would take _a lot_ longer than just a few minutes.

While the kid's dad sucked at keeping an eye on them, he apparently taught them well to look out when crossing the streets, and keep close to an adult. Bakura was shocked and almost appalled when he felt a tiny hand sliding into his own, and had looked down to his left to see the girl standing beside him cheerfully. Hand-holding was definitely _not_ something he was used to, and certainly not with some kid he was expected to baby-sit. Hopefully he'd find the kids' parent soon enough. He really wasn't cut out for this type of thing.

Searching didn't take as long as he thought it would, and for that he was grateful. After wandering around a bit in front of the vegetable stands, the girl suddenly brightened like a one hundred watt light bulb given new life, and pointed excitedly in front of her and then darted off before Bakura could even raise a hand to stop her. He might not have been good with kids, but he at least knew that it was bad parenting to allow them to run around by themselves. So he grabbed her frightened little brother by his tightly fisted clammy hand, and more or less dragged the kid behind him as he hurried after his surprisingly fast older sister.

The girl was bounding up at down at the feet of some person that had to have been her disappearing father. When he got there with the little boy Shuu, he ran away from Bakura's side and hide behind the legs of his father. Bakura himself scowled at the little boy, then finally looked up at the kid's father, intending to give the guy a piece of his mind. He wanted to tell the guy off for losing his kids, because if even someone like him knew better than that, then a parent of two kids damn well should, but the minute he looked at the man he completely froze up.

"Bakura…?" The name hung in the air tensely, about as palpable as Shuu's nerves and his sister's excited confusion. Bakura heard his name and thought that he should respond to it, but his brain was short-circuiting. He couldn't even get air to his lungs, and the only thing he could think was that he must be having a heart attack, though he had no idea what one felt like. This wasn't supposed to happen. This was _never_ supposed to have happened.

_But it did!_ The sadistic part of his brain that was still working supplied gleefully.

He had to say something. The male in front of him was still looking at him, though he had yet to say anything for a full two minutes now, and Bakura knew that he wasn't going to get out of this just by remaining silent. If he could move, he would have ran. This was not supposed to happen. He had never thought he would meet Marik again, after all this time. What was most surprising was how much it all _hurt_.

"Bakura?" Marik sounded less sure now as he let the name fall from his lips again. He sounded relieved, just a bit, like the further he was from being Bakura, the happier Marik would be.

"Yeah," Bakura answered. "It's me."

"What are you doing here?"

The question stung, with all the incredulity and disbelief that was packed into it. While it was true that he'd never expected to see Marik here, much less run into his damn kids, he didn't think he would have ever said it like that. Bakura felt like he didn't deserve to be here with the way Marik dropped the question, like he should have been far far away, so far that not even a wisp of him every would have been caught.

"Those kids of yours ran into me and started begging for me to help find their 'Daddy'. Guess I didn't think he'd be you," Bakura answered, shrugging casually.

"I didn't think you were the type to help kids looking for their father," Marik said. His violet eyes narrowed, though Bakura couldn't tell if it was in a distrustful manner, or he was just trying to gain some understanding of the situation he found himself in. Once he had been able to understand Marik more clearly than he could understand himself, and while the other male had obviously aged since their last meeting, he didn't look all that different. But then…

"Some things change," Bakura replied. Marik didn't respond. Maybe he was going over the validity of that statement, much as Bakura himself. A lot of things fucking changed, but he'd never been one to help anyone, and even Marik should be able to guess that he still didn't now. A lot of things changed, but some didn't at all, and that was why he needed to be going now. He needed to get out of this damn market for forget about what a stupid idea going to get some fresh air had been. He'd go to the store he worked at, see who was working tonight, maybe get some free cheap beer, and then hole it up in his shithole apartment and drink the night away. Right now, that sounded like the best plan he'd had all day, and he was eager to put it into action.

"Well, guess I'll be going now," He said. He had turned and started walking away before the words even finished leaving his mouth.

"Wait!"

Shit. Shit shit shit! Bakura stopped. He sure as hell didn't want to, but his feet had a mind of their own, and they were under the control of Marik's melodious voice, as discordant now as it had been years before. Somehow the nasally sound had always been able to control him more than his own mind.

Marik was just as surprised as Bakura by the words that had come out of his mouth, and he looked at the hand that had outstretched after Bakura's retreating back with equal befuddlement. Maybe when he'd thought Bakura was leaving he'd known what to say, but now that the two were back to standing awkwardly in front of one another, shyly avoiding eye contact like two teens at a high school dance, all words had left him.

"Daddy, let him come over for dinner! Mommy won't care!" The little girl that had been all but forgotten at Marik's feet suggested enthusiastically. Marik blinked and looked down at her, like he too hadn't remembered she and her brother were there for the time being.

It was an awful idea, but for purely masochistic reasons on the part of both males, Marik nodded and phrased the question himself, and Bakura accepted. He knew that he didn't want to. He knew that seeing Marik himself was awful enough, and that hearing the words "Daddy" and "Mommy" in the same sentence had caused that heart attack sensation all over again, but he accepted. He'd never been able to say no. So Marik walked out of the market with his children, nodding absently to them about whatever they babbled on about, and Bakura trailed behind like a diseased leper. It was even more awful than waking up every morning and knowing that he'd done nothing with his life. He could have lived with that. But now he was off to see the happy family in all of its glory. He wondered if the splendor of it would burn him.

Mai greeted them at the front door. If the telling signs of aging were evident in Marik with his dim eyes and blonde hair that didn't seem as bright as Bakura remembered, then Mai had obviously not aged so much as a day since Bakura had seen her last in high school, sixteen years ago. She was as bright and bouncy as ever, and full with the same awful enthusiasm as her daughter, whose name Bakura leaned was Aria. Mai was understandably surprised to see Bakura standing in her doorway, but within seconds she was smiling and giving him a tour of the house, like she'd been expecting him this entire time. Bakura was sickened by it all.

By the time the five of them had sat down around the dinner table, he felt like he wanted to upchuck everything that was in his stomach instead of shoving more down. Mai had made some extravagant looking dish with chicken. Bakura hadn't ever taken her for the cooking type back in high school, but apparently marriage and kids sat well with her.

"So Bakura, how have you been getting along all these years?" Mai questioned politely.

"Oh, you know, I've been getting along," He replied sarcastically. Unlike Mai and Marik, he hadn't retained all of his former glory from his days spent in high school. He'd been working at the convenience store for three years now, and before that he'd held a wide assortment of different odd jobs, none of which had paid well. His shabby appearance this morning was the same as any other morning, and no doubt both Marik and Mai knew that. The only two that wouldn't get his sarcasm were Aria and Shuu, who were both looking at him with interest, though Shuu more apprehensively so.

"What have you been doing?" Marik questioned. His voice surprised Bakura a bit, not only because he hadn't heard it for about nine years, but because the entire time Bakura had been here in his home, Marik hadn't spoken to him once.

"Working at a shitty little convenience store downtown," He answered. Mai's eyes narrowed fiercely at him and covered Shuu's ears, while Aria's eyes widened and covered her own with exaggerated movements.

"Language!" Mai scolded. Bakura offered a shrug, as close to an apology as anyone here was going to get. He didn't exactly care about kids, and he wasn't going to censor his language in front of these ones. He was already trying to censor as much of himself as he possibly could. He didn't have the capacity or the energy to worry about the naïve little kids as well.

"So you live nearby then?" Again the tone with which Marik said the question suggested that he wished he were anywhere but. It stung more than Bakura cared to admit, and he almost flinched at the coolness of it. When had Marik begun speaking to him like that? Of course he knew the answer to that question though. He had brought this new behavior on himself when he'd broken his promise to keep in touch the day of Marik's wedding to Mai.

"Not exactly. I live about thirty minutes away from my place of employment. I get there by bus," He explained dryly. "I don't go out much other than to get to and from work. Probably why we've never bumped into each other before." And he wished they never had. The one thing Bakura wanted more than anything was to never see Marik again. He had purposefully moved far away from his hometown with the idea in mind that he never _would_ see Marik again. But his life had never been very easy, and apparently this was just another way of making him miserable now. Because he wasn't enough already.

"Well what a coincidence," Mai commented. She was trying her best to break the awkward tension that was only apparent to the three adults in the room, but so far it wasn't working very well.

"Apparently so. We've lived here since Aria was born, and we've never bumped into him once. It's almost like you were trying to avoid me all this time, Bakura," Marik replied bitterly. Bakura almost flinched at the hateful tone, and he had half raised his head to look at Marik and gauge his reaction properly before he remembered himself and turned his grimace back to the plate of food in front of him. He speared a piece of chicken furiously and shoved it into his mouth, chewing angrily.

"I'm just living out my life. I had no clue you were here," He said. He was trying to keep the resentment out of his voice, and he masked it all with anger, the way he did everything. Unless Marik had become adept at reading him—and he never had—then he wouldn't know the truth from what he saw.

"No, you wouldn't, would you?" Marik questioned sarcastically. Bakura's eyes flashed. He raised his head to look at Marik defiantly. The blonde returned his gaze with equal fervor. His knuckles were turning white around the piece of silverware he clenched tightly in a fist. This was the angriest he'd ever seen Marik, Bakura realized. The only thing that ever came close to the same level of this anger was when he spoke of his father, and the Marik he'd known had never been fond of doing that. But on the rare occasions he did, his eyes would light up with electricity, as dangerous as a lightening storm itself, and his face would harden into the same furious scowl he wore now. Bakura's own expression faltered in the face of such beautiful rage. He wanted to say something. He wanted to apologize for leaving and breaking his promise, because he'd never wanted to do so in the first place, but it had been his only option! Marik had never felt the same way about him as he did, and he knew that all too well. Aria and Shuu were proof enough of that.

If Marik had continued to look at him the way he was, Bakura might have lost himself completely and done something stupid. As it was, the moment those violet eyes were off him, Bakura was released from the trance he'd been held in and recomposed his face to give away nothing. He watched out of his peripherals as Marik ate his own food, then turned back to his own when he felt like he would be caught. Whatever Mai had cooked, it was the best tasting meal he'd eaten in a while, but now it weighed heavily in his stomach. He shouldn't be here. He wasn't supposed to have ever found Marik again. Marik was meant to be with his beautiful wife, and take care of his beautiful kids, and live in his beautiful house, and Bakura was not meant to be a part of that at all. His own life was miles away from this, and he couldn't help feeling like by being here he was bringing his infection with him. He shouldn't have accepted.

"I should leave," He said abruptly, placing his silverware down on the table beside the plate. Beside him Aria took in a gasp of air so huge he thought the young girl might choke, but that was not the case. Instead she clutched tightly onto his arm, to the point where it actually hurt.

"No! I don't want you to go! We're having fun!" She protested. Bakura blinked.

"Aria, let him go!" Mai hissed from across the table. All the little girl did in response was stick her tongue out at her mother and clung tighter.

"No no! He's Daddy's friend! He should stay!" The girl yelled. She turned dramatically to look at her younger brother, who shrunk back in his seat at the sudden influx of attention that was being directed to him. "Right Shuu? He should stay here!"

"Aria!" Mai said. The older woman looked half a second away from getting out of her chair and dragging her offspring off Bakura's arm, but the girl didn't seem to mind at all. Marik seemed just as stunned as Bakura himself was about the sudden outburst from Aria, who had been relatively quiet during the dinner, except for when she'd thrown a noodle at her brother earlier. Shuu was still staring incomprehensively at his sister, like he couldn't believe she was expecting him to say something here.

"Shuu! Say something! Shouldn't he stay here?" Aria demanded, and then kicked her brother for good measure. The younger boy squeaked and jumped up in his chair, but it got his lips moving.

"I… think it's good Daddy had friends. He should stay," The young boy said nervously. Aria beamed brighter than the light hanging above them.

"Right! So you should stay mister Bakura!" She said triumphantly.

"It is nice that Daddy has a friend, but his friend might have to leave, so we should let him if he needs to, Aria. You should let him go now," Mai said seriously.

"Only if you promise to come back!" The little girl said, with a persistent tug on his arm.

"Umm, yeah, sure," Bakura agreed half-heartedly. He wasn't used to dealing with children. Normally they avoided him, but for some incomprehensible reason, Aria seemed to genuinely like him. He almost felt bad for having to lie to her, but he wasn't going to be coming back any time soon. He shouldn't have come here in the first place. Why he had was a question he would ponder back when he was at his apartment and no longer having to worry that he would give away something his shouldn't. Aria didn't know that of course, and she released his arm without exhorting any more false promises out of him. Mai was there by her side in an instant, and she gathered both Aria and Shuu's hands in her own.

"Okay, why don't we let Daddy and his friend have some time to themselves now? It's about time for you two to get ready for bed, so go upstairs and start brushing your teeth and changing. I'll be up with you in a minute," Mai suggested. Aria smiled and Shuu nodded solemnly. Then both small children hopped out of their chairs and pitter-pattered up the stairs.

"Bakura, could you grab all of the dishes and bring them into the kitchen for me please?" Mai said next. Bakura's brow crinkled, and he was halfway to opening his mouth and stating that he wasn't about to do her job and clean up after everyone, but then he saw the sharp gleam in her purple eyes and thought better of it. He'd never encountered Mai outside of a few classes when they'd gone to high school together, but rumor had it that she had a temper and a tongue that could cut down even the most egotistical of people with just a word. While she might be a housewife now, the look in her eyes suggested she had still retained all of her sarcasm and wit. So, with a drawn-out grumble, he stood out of his chair and grabbed the half-completed plates of Aria and Shuu and piled them atop his and Mai's.

Gathering up Marik's plate was another task all together. The blonde man himself had yet to move from the head of the table, and as Bakura quickened to him it didn't look like he was going anywhere anytime soon. His head was bowed slightly, so that Bakura could not see his face or the expression on it. Even with this blockade, Bakura felt his heartbeat elevate as he grew closer. He'd hoped that Marik would just offer his plate to him, but that didn't seem to be the case here. The other male almost didn't seem to notice him, though Bakura knew that if Marik cared about him even a fraction of how much he cared about Marik, that couldn't have been the case. He was all too aware of Marik this close up. He could smell the unique, exotic scent of him that flowed from his pores, see every single separate strand of silky blonde hair, and could picture his face crystal clearly in his mind, despite the fact that he could not see it with his eyes.

He grabbed for the plate hesitantly, fumbled around the raised edge of it and missed, then had to go back for a second grab. Marik shifted slightly in his seat and Bakura almost froze rooted to the spot in front of him. He gulped, scolded himself for acting so foolish, than grabbed for the plate with renewed determination and took it away. He darted away faster from Marik than he ever had before, and when he could no longer smell the other male his head cleared. He was able to remind himself that he was an outsider here, and that Marik _did not_ love him. If anything, judging by the male's earlier behavior, right about now Marik probably hated him. That thought stung enough to cause Bakura to visibly flinch, but it only served to solidify his resolve. He shouldn't have come here, and now he needed to go as soon as he dropped these plates off with Mai.

When he got to the kitchen, Mai took the plates out of his arms and deposited them in the sink, then turned on the faucet as fully as she could.

"Well thank god that's over with," She sighed. She waved away a thick strand of blonde hair from her face, and leaned against the sink counter. Her eyes were fixed directly on Bakura, and Bakura himself raised an eyebrow in question.

"What are you doing here, Bakura? I know you don't want to be," She said.

"That's why I'm leaving," He responded dryly. Two could be blunt here.

"No, you're not," Mai said, crossing her arms. Her expression immediately became more serious, and out of amusement only Bakura took up a spot alongside her against the counter.

"I know you don't want to be here, yet here you are. You tried so hard to run away from him, and you found him again despite all that. You're obviously here for a reason. And I'm not letting you go until you tell him," The older woman stated.

"Oh really? And what exactly is it I'm supposed to tell him? Since you seem to know what I'm thinking, why don't you enlighten me?" Bakura questioned sarcastically. Mai only smiled.

"Defensive mechanisms only make it that much more apparent, you know. I think pretty much everyone who saw the two of you together knew about it, except him. He's always been a bit dense about those sorts of things though," She chuckled softly. Bakura only rolled his eyes and fixed her with a look that pointedly said to get on with it. Mai complied without fail.

"I'm talking about the way you feel about him. It's really obvious. Hell, I wouldn't put it past even Aria to have noticed you like him! It's been how many years since you first left him, and you still can't get over him? There's something wrong with that. You need to tell him. This whole thing needs to be over so you can get on with your life and stop pining away for him. And I'm not letting you go until you do so."

Bakura was so stunned by her words that he forgot to interrupt her before she said anything too incriminating. The water was still running in the sink, but Marik was only sitting in the next room over! Bakura's eyes instinctively looked at the doorway he had entered in through, but there was no stunned Marik standing inside in, so he was still good. His dirty secret was still concealed from the one person that needed to hear it the most. He remembered to breathe again.

"I don't know what you're talking about," He said, and even as the words came from his own mouth they sounded flat and unconvincing.

"You really going to try that with me?" Mai asked snidely. "I'm a woman, Bakura. I have a sixth-sense about these types of things. You're not going to convince me of anything." Something about her casual dismissal of his excuse infuriated Bakura, and before he could hold it in he was shaking with barely concealed rage.

"So what would you want me to do?" He hissed, barely able to keep his voice below the clamor of the sink faucet. "You seriously want me to go out there and tell your _husband_ and the father of your _children_ that I _love_ him? Why the hell would I do that?"

"Because you need to," Mai responded coolly.

"_No I don't!_" Bakura growled. His fist slammed into the tile of the counter and he pushed himself away from it to look Mai right in the eyes. "No I fucking don't. I've gone all these years without tell him because there's no fucking _point_ to it! He doesn't fucking love me! He probably hates me now for how many times I've ignored his calls and letters! I don't need to tell him shit, and I'm not going to let you stand there and preach to me about how I do! It's easy for you to say, isn't it? You already have him."

"You don't know what the outcome will be until you give it a try," Mai said. Her voice sounded soft and gentle in comparison to the rage Bakura was in, but it didn't soothe him or calm him down. It felt like a slap in his face, and he took a step backward.

"I'm leaving," He said, and turned to walk away.

"If you don't do it I will!" Mai called after him.

In the kitchen Marik still sat at the dinner table. If he had heard any of the conversation that had taken place just beside him, he didn't give any indication of it. Bakura was in too much of a hurry to take much notice of him. All he wanted to do was leave this house and hurry back to his empty apartment.

"Bakura loves you!"

The words made him freeze. He couldn't move, he couldn't breathe; it was the same phenomena that had happened just earlier but suddenly so much worse and frightening.

"What?"

"Bakura loves you. He's loved you for years now, Marik, since high school. That's why he left."

He heard both Marik and Mai talking, but neither of them seemed to be saying words that he could understand. His mind was blank. All he knew was that all around him the fragile life he'd made for himself was crumbling. He was visible for them all now, and everything he'd hidden, no matter how pathetically, was bare for everyone to see. For Marik to see.

"Bakura?"

He heard a chair sliding out across the floor, and knew that would be Marik's.

"Bakura? Is that true?"

He heard the wooden floorboard creak as Marik's weight and presence approached him. His eyes were wide. He was breathing heavily. He couldn't think of what to do. He could hear his heart thudding violently in his ears, and he couldn't think of what to do with all the noise it was causing. Marik knew. Marik _knew_. For years he'd kept away the truth and now _Marik knew_, and he couldn't try to say that it wasn't true, because he silence had already proven that it was.

"Bakura?"

He did the one and only thing he could think to do in the situation. The word screamed at him, only because it was the one thing that was so familiar to him, and the one thing he'd already been doing this entire time. Bakura broke his paralysis and ran.

00000

Marik didn't know what to do. The only thing that was going though his head right now was just that; that he didn't know what to do. That, and the horrible, awful feelings of a surprise he wished he'd never gotten.

He took a rigid step forward from the spot Bakura had left him at, and that seemed to clear the fog, if only a little. After nearly ten years of hearing no word from him, he'd accidentally bumped into Bakura today. Okay, got it. Then there'd been an awkward dinner, and Bakura had disappeared into the kitchen with Mai for a bit. Simple enough to follow. Then things got confusing. When Bakura came out of the kitchen, he'd been in a much angrier mood than he'd gone in, and just as he were about to leave, Mai had said something that made everyone in the room stop. There'd been a fragile sort of calm in the few seconds that followed, until Bakura bolted out of the door, and now here he was, still trying to wrap his mind around everything.

This was stupid. He was just standing here. He still didn't quite know what was going on, or what Mai had meant by… what she said… but he knew that standing around was going to get him nowhere.

He took another step to the door, and this time didn't stop moving. Bakura had run through that same door. Bakura did what he did best, and that was run away. And now Marik was realizing that just like all the other times Bakura had ran and left him alone, he didn't want to let his friend go. He didn't want Bakura to keep running away from him. He didn't want to be left alone, confused, because every time he thought things were going fine, they always got worse. He ran too. His feet really started moving, and then without a word or look at Mai, he ran out the door after Bakura, because he knew this was the one time he didn't want to be left alone and without an idea of what was going on in his friend's head.

He had no idea where he was going, but that was okay because he didn't think Bakura knew either, and by that logic alone they were destined to meet up somewhere. So Marik ran down streets he only vaguely registered the name of, and didn't stop even when he began to get tired, because he had not found Bakura yet.

Once he thought he caught a small flash of white hair, and illusion or real, Marik ran faster after it. He wasn't going to let Bakura get away from him. Not this time. Not now.

Marik turned a corner and came to a screeching halt when he saw Bakura standing under a streetlamp, breathing heavily. The second Bakura caught sight of him, however, he started running again. Marik was not going to have any of that. Not when he was so close.

"Bakura!" He screamed. "Stop!"

He didn't know if it was going to work, but apparently the command did the trick. Bakura stopped, frozen as still as he had when Mai said the words. His back was to Marik, and the only thing he could see of the other under the harsh light of the streetlamp was the tension straining his back. Marik took a few uncertain steps forward, until there was only a space of about five feet separating them. He didn't know what to do now. It was one thing chasing Bakura all the way out here, but now that he'd caught him his mind was just as empty as before.

"Is it true?" He questioned. Bakura visibly jumped, then curled into himself even more.

"Is what true?" He parroted hoarsely.

"…What Mai said. Is it true?" Marik asked.

"You so disgusted by it that you can't even bring yourself to say it?" Bakura asked. That hurt. Marik winced, because a part of what Bakura said was true. He didn't know if disgusted was the right word, but it definitely was a shock, even more so if…

"Turn around," Marik demanded. He saw Bakura shake his head, so he repeated the command. He knew the exact moment when the other male gave in. His shoulders sank and he grew even wearier and tired than he'd seemed when Marik had first bumped into him earlier today. Bakura shuffled slowly around to face him, though large chucks of white hair still settled in front of his face. Marik wanted to push them back so he could see clearly, have an accurate understanding of what was going on now, but he didn't dare move forward. He could sense a delicate string of balance between them now, and if he upset it in any way, he knew that Bakura would turn and run again. And this time, he doubted any words he could say would make him stop.

"Bakura… Please tell me what Mai meant with what she said."

"Everything," Bakura said, with a small gesture of his arm. "She hit the nail right on the fucking head. Damn smart woman you've got there." Marik ignored the comment, and focused instead on the beginning part of the statement. He felt his heart clamor in his chest, and now he was beginning to think about running. He did not know what was going on here, but he didn't want to allow himself to escape from it. Not before he knew.

"So then you…" He started.

"Love you?" Bakura finished, looking into Marik's eyes for the first time since they'd began talking. His gaze dropped back down to the floor again in a second. "Yeah, I guess I do."

Marik didn't say anything. He didn't know what he _could_ say. There'd been a time when he'd thought… But then Bakura had run away and he'd gotten married, and since then he hadn't seen Bakura for nine years. Now he was hearing that all along, Bakura had loved him.

"Not that it matters," Bakura spoke up. "You're married. You've got kids. You're fucking happy, right? So it doesn't really matter, not in the least. So why don't you just say it already? Say that you hate me and never want to see me again, and then I'll leave and you can do whatever the hell you want with the rest of your life."

"I'm not married," Marik said. It wasn't what he wanted to say, and it certainly wasn't what Bakura was expecting him too. The white haired male's head shot up to look at him and this time remained there, overcome by curiosity more so than he was fear.

"Mai and I got a divorce a little over a year ago. We love each other, but… She was always in love with Jounouchi, from our class? I knew it when I started going out with her, but it didn't seem to matter then because she said nothing was ever going to happen between her and him, even though they both loved each other. Two years ago she met up with him, and they started talking, and the old spark between them came back to life. She told me that she wanted to get a divorce, so she could marry Jounouchi, and I said okay. I love Mai, but sometimes it kind of feels like I don't love her in the way I should, not like a husband should. And Mai loves me, but it's the same kind of feel with her. So we got a divorce. I offered to move out and let her and Jounouchi keep the house, but Jounouchi said he wanted to get enough money to buy his own house for them to live in. Until then, we decided it would be better for Mai to stay here with the kids and me. But we're not married anymore."

After that rather long line of dialogue, the two of them fell into an uncomfortable silence. Marik didn't know what to say next. He didn't know what had prompted him to say all of that in the first place. He should have said something along the lines of what Bakura had been expecting. He should have said that he didn't care about Bakura's feelings, and that he didn't want to see him anymore. Every time Bakura showed up he felt worse and worse when he left again, and it always happened. He should have told Bakura to just remain gone so he wouldn't ever have to deal with the hurt, but he didn't want to. He didn't want him to remain gone. He liked it when Bakura came around, even if it was brief.

"So what does that mean?" Bakura asked. The question startled Marik back to the here and now of their conversation. He hesitated. He didn't _know_ what it meant.

"I… don't know. But I don't want you to leave. Every time you do, it hurts, and it feels so good to see you again when you come back, but I also know that you'll be leaving again without telling me. I don't like it when you do that. I don't want you to run away from me again," Marik confessed. He couldn't tell what Bakura's reaction to that was. The other male continued to look at him from across the gap between them without saying anything. Finally, Marik began feeling too agitated by the silence. He took a step forward without thinking, and the effect was immediate. Bakura's brown eyes widened with a fright Marik had never seen on his face before, and for a terrifying second he thought he'd pushed too far and Bakura would bolt now.

"Don't leave!" Marik cried, throwing his hand out. Bakura looked at the hand suspiciously, but he stayed put. Marik took another step forward.

"Please don't leave," He said softly. Bakura said nothing. Marik took step after small step that brought him closer and closer to the male in front of him. Five feet quickly diminished and became one, and then the distance closed even more. Marik stopped only a few inches away from Bakura. He could feel his friend's breath fanning hotly against his face. His breaths came rapid and short, betraying just how skittish Bakura was feeling now. Hesitantly, Marik brought his hands up to Bakura's face. When his palms touched the skin of the other man's cheeks, Bakura completely stilled and his breath stopped coming.

"What are you doing?" He asked quietly.

"I don't really know," Marik responded. He leaned in close to Bakura's face and closed his eyes. Bakura's hair brushed against his forehead, and their noses skirted around one another. He could actually feel the tension coming off the body in front of him, but he ignored it. Standing so close to Bakura like this, it quieted all the noise going on in his head. He still had no idea what he was doing here, but right now it didn't matter.

"Marik…" Bakura sighed. Hesitantly, arms crept around his waist. They wavered in the air away from his body before coming down to touch him. Marik could feel the trembling in those arms just as easily as he could hear the uncertainty and longing in Bakura's voice. He moved his face closer to Bakura's still, and for only a second pressed his lips to the other male's. He heard Bakura's intake of air, registered just for a second the softness of his lips, and then Marik pulled away from Bakura and his grasping hands.

"I don't know what I'm doing," He admitted softly. He shook his head. "Bakura, I…"

"I shouldn't be here," Bakura said.

"No." Marik was quick to go against that notion. He didn't know what was going on both inside and outside of his head, but he did know that he wanted Bakura to stay right here.

"We should go back to the house. Maybe… we can make sense of things there," He suggested.

"No. I should just leave. I shouldn't have stopped, I shouldn't have said anything to you about—"

"Bakura," Marik interrupted sharply, "Shut up already. I don't want you leaving. I know that. I don't know much of anything else, but I do know that. You're going to come back with me, and then we're going to figure something out."

Bakura's brown eyes trailed away from Marik's face, and down to the ground they stood on. He was still unsure about the entire thing, probably even more so than Marik himself. He wanted to laugh at the awkwardness of the situation and how incapable the two of them were at handling it, but he knew that Bakura would take it the wrong way if he did. He needed to say something. He needed to do something to convince Bakura to come with him. Because that thin line of balance hadn't widened any, and now it was only shortening more and more. He would lose his chance before long.

"I don't know what it feels like to love you, Bakura. I don't love you. Not in the way you do me. But… I love you as a friend, if that makes any sense. I always thought that when we got done with high school we'd both get jobs somewhere and continue to go through life hanging out with one another. I didn't really think of anything else other than that. And then you left, and I didn't know what to do. I was really messed up. Ask Isis, she'll tell you. All I did for a long time was sit around the house watching television. Then I started going out more, and met Mai, and things got better, but I still missed you a lot. I was ecstatic to see you on the day of my wedding. I thought things would go back to normal again, but then you ran away for the second time, and I sank into that funk all over again. I don't want you to go away anymore. So please come with me back to my house? Let's… talk about all this. Maybe… we can give it a try?" He pleaded.

That was all he could do now. He couldn't say any more, because if he did, it wouldn't be truthful, even if it were what Bakura wanted to hear. He didn't know how he felt about all of this, but he did know that he didn't love Bakura. Not yet. But maybe…

"All right," Bakura agreed. "We'll talk." His head lifted back up to Marik and he tried to give a shaky smile. It wasn't even close to being one, but something in it reminded Marik of the Bakura he'd known back in high school, and he felt lighter, somehow. He smiled back, and then before he could lose his nerve linked his hand with Bakura's own.

"Let's go," He said. Bakura nodded, and they started the long walk back.

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><p>So. this was a bit better in my head, so I think it kind of drags a bit and might not be as dramatic and tension filled as I want, but eh. I think the kids detracted from that. They played more of a part than I'd initially thought they would. I also tried to capture Bakura's personality from the first chapter, but it seemed kind of different in this. Maybe more sarcastic, which I guess is okay because some time has passed since that chapter. The bit from Marik's POV was also somewhat unexpected. I knew that it would happen, but it's a lot longer than I wanted it to be. The ending just seemed to drag! I need to work on that, I think.<p>

But anyways! Next chapter will finally be back to the humor (I don't think even I could come up with something angsty for "Which seat can I take?" unless it was like, some existential crisis where the seat was some symbolic concept for the helplessness of life and the inability to really decide on what course of action you want to take, that ultimately results in suicide, but anyways...) So yeah, humor! So until next time, remember to review, and thanks!


	11. Which Seat Can I Take?

Up early because I've totally had this finished for a week, and I need something to distract me for a few minutes from studying for my Japanese test. I suck. Soooooooo bad. At Japanese. Should have taken Latin. But anyways~~~

**Disclaimer:** Yeah, I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. Or "Friday." Kthnx

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><p>Chapter Eleven: Which Seat Can I Take?<p>

There were few things that Marik had ever seen Bakura fear. The ancient spirit of the Sennen Ring was probably the most fearless person Marik knew of. Whether this was because he had lived for thousands of years and thus encountered every fearsome thing that breathed darkness, or because he was just an idiot, Marik did not know. What he did know was that it was almost a magical thing, watching Bakura face each and every obstacle he came up against without even a bat of his eyes, much less the slightest moment's hesitation or flinch. It was like there was literally nothing on the surface of the planet for Bakura to fear. This was the way Marik found himself thinking. That was why, when he finally did find something Bakura was truly scared of, it came as such a shock to him.

The day was normal enough. Marik told his sister that he was going out; aforementioned sister told him that he better not be seeing Bakura again. Marik conveniently left the house before she could insist that he answer if he was or wasn't. After the avoided confrontation, Marik hopped on his bike, drove to the apartment Ryou Bakura was renting, and climbed up the fire escape to the right floor. He could have used the entrance, of course, but since Ryou hadn't been in control for some time, and Bakura wasn't about to waste the money he received from his stolen goods on something silly like paying rent, the landlord wasn't exactly accommodating when he learned of who Marik was constantly visiting.

Upon reaching the correct floor, Marik hopped off the ladder and walked until he came to the proper window. A few people still peered nosily out their windows when he passed, but most were used to his strange visits by this point. When he located the window to Ryou Bakura's living room, he opened the pane up and squeezed inside, then sat on the couch with his feet up until whenever Bakura noticed he was here.

Sometimes Bakura wasn't at the apartment when Marik stopped by, and he eventually entered using the same path Marik himself had earlier. Other times, Bakura was still sleeping, and if he took too long, Marik got bored enough to rummage through the apartment and check out any new objects Bakura had managed to liberate from their rightful owners. If Bakura still wasn't up by then, Marik climbed into the bed with the spirit, and although things usually took an hour longer, they were eventually both up and at 'em.

Today Bakura seemed to be asleep, so Marik took to looking around the apartment. Unfortunately, there really wasn't anything new for him to examine, so he soon headed to Bakura's room. He opened the door wide enough so he could slip in, and not any more. Bakura liked to sleep in the utter darkness that could only be accomplished by hanging heavy drapes over every window and covering any and all lights or small openings, and as such was very sensitive to any light that did enter his sanctuary. Marik had to be careful to not shine too much, lest Bakura awaken. And he didn't want that happening just yet.

Marik trod as quietly to the bed as a mouse stirring on Christmas Eve. He came to a stop only at the bed itself, and then as he prepared to jump onto the bed and the bundle of blankets that could only be Bakura, a cold hand reached out and grabbed his arm and Marik screamed bloody murder.

It was of course, only Bakura, who found the entire thing to be hilarious. Marik didn't. So in retaliation he tore the heavy drapes away from the windows, letting in the accursed sun, which burnt Bakura as thoroughly as it would a vampire, or at least it sounded that way by all the screaming he did. Marik found this to be hilarious. Bakura didn't. Either way, they were quite even, and thus could continue the day.

It would be a normal day for the two of them. Scope out some potential houses to break into and steal from later on when the day grew dark, stop at some shitty restaurant to get food and not pay, and then cause some havoc on the normal denizens that called Domino home. The only difference was that while they normal traveled on foot, this time Marik had brought with him his motorbike, thinking that they could widen their scope of activity some.

"I'm not riding that," Bakura announced decisively upon seeing the metal contraption.

"What are you talking about?" Marik questioned. He didn't know yet that Bakura was quite uncomfortable with driving on the hulking beast.

"I'm not riding on that. We can walk, just like we always do."

This attitude threw Marik off some. He couldn't think of any reason why Bakura would not want to take the motorcycle. He did not contemplate the idea that Bakura might be afraid of the thing, because he had seen Bakura in other modern modes of transportation, like taxis or buses, and the spirit had never had problems with any of those. The only thing he could think was that he was just being contrary now.

"And why might that be?" he asked sarcastically.

"There's not even anywhere for me to sit on the thing!" Bakura exclaimed. Marik smiled deviously.

"Of course there is. You take the bitch seat," he announced with no small amount of glee. He had known, of course, that Bakura would take bitch, but the fact had not fully dawned on him until this moment, and now his enjoyment at Bakura's seething discomfort was palpable in the air around them, as apparent at the huge grin he wore on his face.

"I'm not taking bitch," Bakura argued with only a twitch to give away his irritation.

"Yeah, you are," Marik said. "It's my motorcycle, and I know how to drive it. Unless you have one of your own that you'd like to take, we're driving mine, and you're riding bitch. So do you, Bakura? Do you have a bike of your own hidden around here where I'm not looking? Is it in the back? No? Maybe near the garbage dumpster then, and I'm just not seeing it? Well _that's_ strange, I don't see anything there either!"

Throughout his entire performance, Bakura grew steadily angrier and angrier by the moment. He felt like he was being made fun of, and he did not like this one bit. So as Marik paraded around looking for the imaginary motorcycle they both knew he would not find because it of course did not exist, Bakura decided to do something that would make the other shut up. The problem was, the only thing he could think of to make Marik stop prancing would be to just take the bitch seat, and he was not going to do that. Not even because he did not want to sit bitch, but because he did not want to sit on the motorcycle at all, period.

Eventually Marik grew bored of continuing his faux-search. There was only so much time he could spend humiliating the other, and by the look of the angry red blush on Bakura's face, he had done his job well. So he walked to the motorcycle and took a seat atop it and waited for Bakura to climb on behind him. The only problem was that Bakura did not do this. The paler teen continued to stand defiantly away from the motorcycle, giving it a look that was a mixture of fierce hatred and something almost akin to nerves, but Marik was quick to dismiss that notion because he couldn't believe it. The idea of Bakura being nervous of his motorcycle was so hilarious and uncanny that it of course could not be true. He just did not want to ride bitch.

"I can wait here all day, Bakura. You're going to have to get on eventually," Marik called to his companion cheerfully. Bakura eyed the machine distrustfully, then shook his head.

"I don't have to get anywhere near the thing if I don't want to. You'll be the fool sitting there waiting for something that's not going to happen," he pointed out.

"But you'll be the one who has to deal with my sister when she comes looking for me," Marik argued. Bakura was forced to cede that point to Marik. He did not want to be the catalyst for forcing a meeting with Marik's sister, for he knew the boy was stubborn enough to remain there all night, and thus force Isis to come out and look for him, even if he would get an earful as well. But he was still not riding the bike, and Marik must have seen this, for he sighed dramatically.

"Come on, Bakura! We're burning daylight! If we're going to hit someone up tonight, we've got to figure out who to hit up first! We can't just go in there blind, unless you're hoping to get arrested," Marik said.

"I would never get arrested," Bakura said defensively, recoiling a bit to protect his pride, as if Marik had tried to take a physical jab at it with his comment. The boy who'd said the careless words rolled his eyes dramatically.

"Okay, I know you wouldn't ever get caught, but we _still_ shouldn't go in there without checking the place out first! There might be nothing to get from the entire thing!" Another point to Marik with this one. People nowadays hardly kept anything of any real value in their houses anymore, much to Bakura's disappointment. If he didn't take the time to thoroughly investigate his target, he could waste an entire night on nothing more than some cheap oil paintings and silver tarnished spoons. Even that thought was still not enough to force him to approach the metallic death trap, which Marik saw easily enough.

"Come on! This is just stupid! I won't even bring up the fact that you're sitting bitch, okay? I promise," Marik said. He was beginning to get frustrated now. He had wanted to be on the road about twenty minutes ago, but instead they were still sitting here debating on which seat to take. And Bakura didn't look ready to move from his glaring match with the bike any time soon. Marik was forced to get up and walk over to the male, place his arms around the other's skinny waist, and actually drag him to the bike.

Bakura protested against this like a cat about to take a bath. He jumped and jerked in his struggle to get away from the bike, clawed and hissed, and looked just as fearful as the animal he was portraying would. Perhaps it was this comparison that finally made the idea hit home, or perhaps it was something entirely different, but Marik finally saw that his initial thought had been right, and that Bakura really was just afraid of the motorcycle. The thought was so stunning to him that he released Bakura without putting up any further of a fight.

Bakura, once he escaped from Marik's lackluster grip, dashed away from the motorcycle and only stopped once he was a reasonable distance away and convinced that it could not somehow spring to life and devour him. He glanced suspiciously over to Marik, curious as to why he had let him go, and saw with a kind of horror he has not felt for a great many years that an understanding was dawning on Marik's face, and then the other teen was looking at him with a dancing half-smile.

"You're afraid of it, aren't you?" Marik asked with a widening grin.

"No!" Bakura protested quickly. A little too quickly, he realized too late. Marik did as well, and in an instant he was laughing, laughing like he'd never laughed before, and Bakura's face was burning pinker than even Ryou's ever had.

"I'm not! I just don't want to sit bitch!" he argued. But there was no saving himself now, because Marik already knew, and he'd most likely not even heard Bakura's comment over the raucous sound of his braying laughter. Marik was literally rolling on the ground at this point, pressing tightly his arms to his chest, tears actually falling from his tightly squeezed eyes. Bakura longed to jump on the boy and teach him some manners, but a weary glance informed him that Marik was still near the motorbike, and he didn't want to get too close to that. He didn't know why he was afraid, and that made the fact that he so obviously was even worse. If he knew the reasoning behind his fear he could perhaps do something to destroy it, but at things were, he was just blindly afraid of the machine.

"Oh god!" Marik laughed. "Oh god! You-you're actually… actually… Oh god!" Bakura frowned.

"It's not that funny!" he called out.

"Oh yes it is!" Marik responded with mirth.

His laughter went on for another ten painful minutes at least, each one deserving the honor of being forever remembered in Bakura's own personal hell. The moment he thought the boy was finally over it, the insane chortles just started up all over again. By the time he had finally stopped laughing and picked himself off the ground, he was still bursting out in sporadic chuckles every time he took a cursory glance at Bakura's agitated form.

"Okay… Okay, I'm done. Seriously, I'm done now," Marik said. And then had to cover his mouth as another giggle escaped him. Bakura just stared, very much not impressed. Eventually, after several deep breathes and several minutes longer, Marik calmed himself down. Although Bakura was sure he would start laughing at his misfortune again the minute he was by himself.

"Look umm… I don't really know what to say, but you don't have to be afraid, okay Bakura? I'm a really good driver, so we're not going to get into an accident or anything. And even if we do, and our bodies are horribly mangled in the wreckage, you're immortal, so you'll just go back into the Ring anyways, right? So no problems!" Marik announced cheerfully. Bakura's eyes narrowed.

"Oh yes. I'll just be stuck inside that damn thing until an idiot like you decides to pick it up and put it on. That makes me feel _a lot_ better," he said sarcastically.

"Well, the chances of wrecking are pretty slim, so you won't even have to worry about that anyways," Marik said, ignoring the insult. Right about now, nothing could possible hope to dampen his sprits. Learning of Bakura's nonsensical fear had cheered him up far too much.

"I'm still not getting on that thing," Bakura argued.

"Nothing's going to happen! I _proooomise_, Bakura!" Marik insisted. He left the bike to approach Bakura for a second time, who understandably backed away. Marik gave him a dirty look, and feeling a little foolish, Bakura stood still. He let himself be led closer to the bike, although his first reaction was still to bolt away from the thing. He even let Marik sit him down on it, and then gripped Marik's waist tightly when he joined him on the narrow seat.

"See? It's not so bad," Marik said softly. From the grip Bakura had on him, he was very well aware of the state his companion was in, but he couldn't resist turning his bike on and revving it up. Bakura flinched violently and almost fell off the bike he was so surprised by the sudden vibrations of the engine. What he did instead was cling even tighter to Marik's waist, who was about to laugh again, but suddenly couldn't because of how tight Bakura's grip was.

"Bakura…!" Marik croaked out. He tugged on the other male's arm and thankfully Bakura got the message and released him.

"Don't. Do. That!" Bakura spat out. Even while fearing for his very life he still managed to sound threatening, which was quite the accomplishment, all things considered.

"Okay! Just don't squeeze me again!" Marik complained. He shut off the bike engine. The moment it stopped vibrating Bakura had jumped off and was again staring at the machine distastefully.

"So. That wasn't too bad, was it? Want to try riding it now?" Marik questioned.

"No," Bakura said without any sort of preamble. Marik sighed. He'd actually thought he was getting somewhere.

"Bakura, there is nothing to be afraid of here! I'm not going to get into a crash, and if you're really that worried, you can hold on to me as tightly as you want, so long as you don't try to crush me again," Marik said.

"That's not it."

Something about his voice caught Marik by surprise, and he looked up at Bakura expectantly. The paler of the two was still looking at the bike suspiciously, but he seemed to have calmed somewhat now. Marik had no idea what could still be preventing him from just getting on the bike so they could get a move on.

"Then what is it?" he asked. Bakura lifted his head from the motorbike, and grinned a little, looking more like himself instead of the frightened person he'd been before.

"I'm not sitting in the bitch seat," he announced. Marik's jaw almost dropped at the arbitrary nature of the statement, and then caught himself in time before he could complete the action and look like a fool. Instead, he gave a coy little smile of his own and gestured over to the motorcycle, and with it, the dreaded bitch seat.

"You are most definitely taking that seat, my little bitch," he purred seductively. "After all, I am the one with the bike, and the one that can drive it, and you are the one who has the deadly fear."

Bakura, rather calmly considering, walked over straight up to Marik, not stopping his movements in fear of the monstrous bike that intimidated him with every sweeping step he took. Marik thought he were going to take the bitch seat without any further fighting, so was completely surprised when instead he received a fierce uppercut to the side of his head that actually knocked him flat off the bike and onto his butt in the dirt. He sat there in shock for a few seconds, and by the time he stood up again to yell at Bakura for taking such an underhanded and dirty move, the teen was already back inside the building. He decided that even if Marik did remain sitting on that bike for the entire night, he could deal with Isis when she came around after all.

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><p>So short! Yaayy! And I realized that in pretty much every single chapter I've written, there's always been a kiss. So no kiss. I defied myself, haha. Umm, so yeah, shortness, woot. Next chapter will not be short. If I tell you all right now there's character death in it, will you hate me? Because there is. But it's not a total angst-fest, or at least so far it's not, so that still good? But yeap, that's it, so give me a review voicing your opinion on the latest, and thanks!<p>

Also. On the motorcycle of life, be sure to ask yourself this: Am I riding bitch? ;)


	12. It's Friday, Friday

Hi everyone. So chapter up early because I didn't have one for last week. A few reasons for that. My grandpa ended up getting in a really bad car accident, and on top of that I had to deal with almost getting kicked out of my college for financial reasons. Everything's settled now, and he's okay and so am I finance-wise. But it just really wasn't the time to be writing fanfics. But so I apologize for that, and there shouldn't be anything else to keep me off schedule. I did also get a job in my week-long absence. I make pizza. Gooood pizza. Which is fine and cool, because I get to work this huuuge oven, but the head chef is a total douche bag and I think he hates me. I've only worked twice so far, and he like, yells at me every chance he gets. Not fun. But anyways.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or the song "Friday." Or the movie Groundhog Day, from which the idea for this was loosely taken.

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><p>Chapter Twelve: It's Friday, Friday<p>

As the saying went, Marik had no clue what hit him. He knew it was something big and powerful, because the impact sent his body flying backwards, but then when he crashed to the ground he only felt agonizing pain for about a second before everything went numb, and that was definitely strange. He thought that he might have passed out, but after a few moments of experimentally moving his fingers and toes, he got to his feet like nothing had even happened.

When he stood up, the very first thing he noticed was the huge crowd of people gathered in the streets. In front of them was a semi-truck, and just looking at it brought a wince to Marik's face. He took a few hesitant steps forward, but nothing seemed to be wrong with his body, which again, was very strange. He walked closer and closer to the crowd. It was increasing every second, and there were a great many people there, but one stuck out to Marik more than the others did. Or at least he _thought_ it was a person. All he could really see of him or her was a fast moving flash of white.

When Marik finally grew close enough to the crowd however, all thoughts of the white flash were wiped completely from his mind. Women were covering their mouths, fathers were closing the eyes of their children, and at least every forth person was on their cell phone, most likely calling 119. Who they really needed to be calling, Marik thought with a sickening lurch, was the local morgue. For before him was his broken, blood-spattered body, and he was most definitely dead.

"Hey."

Marik didn't know what it was about the voice that drove him away from the gruesome sight of his death. Perhaps it was because while everyone in the crowd was talking, this seemed to be the only voice aimed _at_ him. Or perhaps he was just unable to stand looking at his own body, usually so beautiful but now nothing more than a broken mess of blood, pulp, and bone. Either way, he turned away from himself, and the white light flashed across his vision. It jumped and danced further and further away from his body, and as if in a trance, Marik followed it.

When the white flash finally stopped moving, it manifested itself in the shape of a young man dressed in a pale grayish sort of purple colored robe. He was floating in midair, legs crossed and with a horribly humorous smirk widening his thin lips. His hair was white and traveled down his back in long untamed spikes, while his eyes were of the deepest obsidian Marik had ever seen. In his right hand he held a long, gnarled staff, like the roots of several trees had irrevocably twined around and around one another. He was abnormal in all senses of the word, and Marik knew without a doubt that it was somehow this man's fault that his body was cooling behind him in a mutilated heap on the pavement.

"Who are you?" Marik demanded.

"Me?" the man questioned. His smirk stretched to the far corners of his face, and looked more like someone had cut a jagged gash across his skin than a mouth. "Who I am isn't of much importance. Right now, you're the star, kiddo."

"What have you done to me?" Marik questioned. He took a defiant step toward the floating man and his fists clenched, but none of this affected the newcomer. He merely grinned his wicked grin, like he was the only one that knew the answer to some cruel joke the rest of the world was just trying to understand.

"Have you taken a look at yourself yet, kid? I'd think it's pretty clear what happened to you." The suggestion was a stupid one, but Marik flushed hotly as he realized that it was valid. He'd taken a look at his body, sure. That was still lying behind him, surrounded by a hoard of people he did not know. But he had not yet taken a look at the form he possessed, and when Marik finally did so now, he was not so surprised to see that his hands and arms were transparent.

"You're dead, kiddo."

"Put me back," Marik demanded as he rounded on the man once again. The floating figure raised a questioning eyebrow, but otherwise said nothing. His smile said everything he needed to. "Put me back in my body. I don't know what you are, but I know you can do it. So put me back."

"I don't think you'd want me to do that. You're pretty messed up there. Several broken bones all throughout your body, your arm nearly snapped clean off, your spine is completely fucked, several organs have already shut down by now, and if they haven't, well the impact of that truck probably made them explode like water balloons. To put it bluntly, your body is pretty fucked. If I put you back in it now, you'd still be just about as dead as you are now. I'm only saving you from feeling the pain of it all," the man explained cheerily.

"What I'm going to do," the man continued, "is take you away to Hell. So you ready?" Before Marik could respond or even really comprehend the sentence the man said, his attention was stolen away by movement of the man himself. He uncurled his legs and stood lengthwise, though still high up in the air. Slowly, he descended to the ground, and a bare foot slipped out from under the robe he wore and settled gently against the ground. He held the staff reverentially in front of him, then ran a smooth hand up the length of it and grabbed a hold of some point Marik hadn't noticed on it before. His fingers steepled, and from the wood he pulled out a large, metallic scythe, the like of which Marik had only before seen in caricatured drawings of the same creature he knew now without a doubt this man to be.

He took one step backwards and then froze. The rest of Marik's body longed to continue running, because if he weren't dead yet he certainly would be when the man in front of him was finished with his business, but he remained rooted to his spot. It wasn't because he was afraid. In this transparent, spirit-like body he now possessed, the only thing he could really feel was an unformed notion of shock that he were truly dead. He was not afraid of the man slowly advancing on him, but he knew that he needed to get away from him. Yet his body held fast. He felt tied down to the ground he stood upon by invisible ropes.

"Sorry for the discomfort. But I really can't have you getting away from me. I've got a schedule to keep, you know?" the man questioned with a tilt of his head. Busy he may be, but from the strolling gait of his walk, Marik would have guessed otherwise. He was being toyed with, and if he could feel irritation, the notion would have angered him to no end.

The man stopped in his tracks in what Marik assumed was another silly game meant solely to stall for time and play some more, but instead of continuing his perpetuating grin, the being in front of him grew dismayed. His scar-like smile fell into a tiny frown, unfitting with his appearance, and he huffed in frustration.

"Now? Do we really have to do this _now_? Can't you just let me take this one? You'll get the next!" he said. To Marik he seemed to be talking to thin air, but he was not surprised by this development. Either the man was crazy, or something even stranger than what had already happened was transpiring. Neither idea startled Marik any.

"Fiiiine!" the man huffed with a drawn out sigh. And then in an instant he changed. The spikes on his wild head of hair tamed to a more manageable state similar to how they'd been before, and the robe he wore turned to a pure white color. The intimidating staff disappeared altogether, and when the being raised his head to look at Marik, he was altogether a much warmer and pleasant presence. He smiled just like the other, but this smile was warm and comforting and altogether normal, unlike the earlier one that had been too much teeth and far too wide.

"Hello," this new person greeted. Marik noticed that he could move again. He raised his hand in a greeting of his own, though respectfully kept his distance. This newcomer wasn't giving him the same feel of ill-will the previous one had, but Marik still had no idea what exactly was going on here, and it could very well all be some elaborate farce.

"I'm Ryou," the other introduced, "And you are Marik Ishtar, am I correct?" Marik nodded.

"What happened to the other guy?" he asked.

"Oh Bakura? He won't be joining us again for a while," Ryou explained. Marik nodded again. He was starting to like this persona more already.

Ryou's attention traveled over to the group still gathered behind them, now with the added wail of an ambulance, and then smiled at Marik again.

"Would you like to go somewhere else? I imagine you have a lot to ask me." Marik agreed, and then he suddenly found himself sitting in the nearby park, on a bench in an area undisturbed by the presence of others. The noise of the ambulance still sounded not too far away, but it was significantly quieter here. Ryou settled down on the bench next to him after adjusting his robe. Marik was only semi startled to see that adorning his back were a pair of huge white feathered wings that disappeared back under the robe as quickly as they had come forth.

"So you're some kind of angel of death, right?" he asked, finally putting voice to his suspicion. Ryou looked a bit strained when he heard the question, though with only a small exhalation of air he set about answering the question.

"Well I am. But Bakura, the other person you saw, isn't. He's a demon," Ryou explained. "It used to be that what happened to souls after their material body had passed on was for the angels to deal with, but demons are greedy and rude, and apt to feel slighted at only the smallest provocation. Some of them began complaining that the angels were being unfair, and that not enough souls were being sent down to Hell. They felt like we were judging them in favor of Heaven, when they might have been better off elsewhere.

"So after a long period of debate, it was decided that the task of judging a soul and deciding where it would end up would be given to two people: and angel and a demon, to make things fair. I was picked, and so was Bakura. The two of us now reside in the same body, and collect and judge the souls of the dead. Together we are Death."

"So he was about to just take me to Hell then?" Marik asked.

"Yes. For every soul we collect, the two of us get into a debate about where that person belongs. Sometimes he wins, sometimes I win. He seemed particularly adamant about taking you with him, but I luckily managed to get a few words in otherwise," Ryou said with a quiet little laugh. Marik grew quiet and clasped his hands together in thought. Ryou let him be, and remained so quiet while Marik contemplated that it seemed he almost wasn't even there anymore.

"I don't want to die," Marik announced finally. "If you're really Death, there must be something you can do to put me back then, isn't there?"

"Well," Ryou began, "There is something I could do, though it's frowned upon." Even in its spiritual state, Marik's phantom heart seemed to skip a beat as he felt whatever joy he could in this body.

"What is it?"

"I can reset this day. You are destined to die today, but if you can somehow survive past this Friday, you'll be allowed to live," Ryou explained solemnly. Marik was about to accept the offer right away, but something in Ryou's countenance made him stop and listen further.

"It won't be easy to do. Each new day you'll die in a different way, at a different time, so there's no planning on how to stop it. People have gone insane trying to stop themselves from dying. Even the knowledge that death is waiting for you is enough to drive a person crazy. I will only do this if you are certain that you want to try. And if I do, I implore you to call out to either Bakura or I when you've had enough and would like for us to collect your soul," Ryou said.

Marik did not even need to think about it. The driving himself insane part was a bit off-putting, but he was sure that this would not be his fate. He wouldn't have to worry about going crazy or needing to call for help, because he was sure that he could beat Death. He accepted the offer without another thought.

00000

When Marik awoke that day it was with only a vague recollection of what must have been a dream. In it he had died. The dream had freaked him out more than he cared to admit, so he forcefully shoved it from his mind, though decided to be extra cautious today in case it held some grain of truth.

He was hit with an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu when his sister asked him to go out to get some groceries, but he shook the sensation off. Isis asked him to get groceries about twice a week. Just because the same event had led to his death in the dream did not matter. He had gone shopping a million times before and not once died because of it. Even so, he remained careful.

He heard the noise before he saw the truck, and even then only noticed it because he was waiting for it. Marik had no sooner taken a step out onto the street pavement than a huge semi-truck came rushing past, causing him to retract that step so suddenly that he fell to the ground. A man who had witnessed the event nearly dropped his briefcase in surprise, then rushed over to Marik's side to help him to his feet.

"Are you all right? That truck nearly hit you!"

"But it didn't," Marik said with a slowly widening smile. He turned to the man and laughed. "It didn't hit me! I'm still alive!"

"Well yes, I'd say you are," the man stated. He looked a bit perplexed by Marik's strange behavior, but the boy himself did not allow his good mood to be put off by this. He had survived! The dream in all its clarity suddenly came rushing back. He remembered Ryou telling him that he would die in a different way each day, but he had almost been killed in the same way today, and he'd managed to evade it! He jumped up without accepting the man's outstretched hand, and smiled gratefully. The day seemed all that much brighter, and without a thought about the matter, Marik stepped into the street, where he was promptly ran over by an incoming car driven by a careless teen texting.

00000

The only clues that Marik had once again met his end were his transparent body and a dull, throbbing pain in his head. He grimaced as his hand reached up to touch it and tangled in his hair. When he removed his hand, he found faint traces of blood there.

"It's not as easy as it seems, is it?"

Marik's head raised, and in front of him he saw the same man he had met at the scene of his first death. The only difference between then and now was that now Marik knew his name.

"I'm not ready to go yet!" he said defiantly. Bakura smiled at his anger.

"I didn't think you would be. I'm just here to check up on you, really. Explain a few things Ryou might have forgotten to. You see that blood there?" He asked, motioning with his staff to the traces on Marik's fingertips. "Every time you die, your spiritual body will resemble more and more your physical body at the time of death. Right now you've only got a little bleeding and what feels like a headache, but the more you insist on trying to survive and fail, the more you'll start to hurt."

"I'm not going to fail," Marik argued, dismissing the rest of Bakura's warning. He knew this for a fact. He wasn't going to just allow himself to die, no matter how beaten down he got in the process. As long as there was a chance that he could survive, he would take it and continue to fight for it, no matter how Bakura or Ryou tempted him to do otherwise.

"If you believe that," Bakura returned knowingly, with an upturn of the lips that suggested Marik was an idiot. Marik only rolled his eyes, refusing to give into the other's temptation at bringing him into an argument.

"Just put me back," he demanded hotly. Bakura made a slow, deliberate shrug with his shoulders, and then in an instant Marik was back in his regular body.

00000

Marik woke up in the same way he had on the past two Fridays. The sunlight streamed in through the blinds he'd forgotten to close, about an hour earlier than he was expecting to wake up at. He closed them and turned over in his blanket, but the memories of the past two days kept him from sleeping further. He climbed out of his bed, showered and dressed, then headed dutifully down the stairs where his sister commanded him to go and get the groceries on the list she'd made. Marik took the list and headed out like he had before.

This time, he bypassed the crossing he'd died at twice already completely. He took side-streets, and even when crossing those was always hyper-aware of the world around him. He only crossed when there was not a car in sight going in either direction, and then walked across with slow strides, careful of any vehicles that were lying in wait for him to pass. He didn't allow himself to get happy enough to forget about any dangers lurking around him like he had the day before, but Marik did feel that a small pat on the back was acceptable when he found himself standing in front of the store, twenty minutes later than he would have been had he crossed the main roads.

After a quick scan of the area, Marik entered the store with his eyes closed. He opened them in a second when he wasn't struck by lightening upon entering. The store wasn't too busy today, and no one in the general vicinity looked like they were about to do him any harm, so without another moment's hesitation, Marik began finding all the items his sister had written down on the list he'd been given.

They majority of them were vegetables, and so all located in the same area of the store. Because he shopped here so frequently, Marik got done fairly quickly, and was ringing his purchases up when the man came into the store. He wore a black mask over his head, and right away Marik knew that this would not end well.

"Everyone get down! Now!" the man yelled. From his pocket he pulled out a small, foreign gun, and waved it around in the air. How he'd managed to get his hands on one Marik had no idea, but he had, and now it was pointed at everyone in the store.

Marik dropped to the floor without a moment's hesitation and put his hands up, quick to show that he wasn't about to try anything funny. The woman who was been ringing him up did the same, and the young mother with the two children behind Marik in line did the same. Her eldest daughter was old enough to know that something important was going on and dropped to her knees as well, but the youngest, who looked to be about three, continued to stand and look at her mother in confusion.

"I _said_, everyone get down! That means the brat too!" the man said with a sharp gesture of his gun toward the little girl. The panicked mother pulled her daughter close, but the girl remained standing. She looked at the gun with wide-eyed amazement and something resembling fear, but the only movement she made was to put a chubby finger into her mouth.

"If you don't get her down on the ground right now, I'll shoot her," the man hissed. The mother cried out loudly and pulled her child tighter to her body, but the girl still did not move. The eldest daughter started to cry; long, loud sobs that agitated the gun-toting robber even more so. Beneath the mask his eyes were darting from mother to both children, and his grip on the gun handle was tightening. Marik bit his lip, and against his better judgment stood up from his spot on the floor.

The moment he stood all eyes were on him, save for the youngest daughter who was still transfixed by the gun. He knew right away that this was a bad idea, but he would have never been able to forgive himself if he stood buy and watched a child murdered. For that reason Marik spoke up and signed his own death this time around. He was shot three times in the chest. The first one punched into him and sent him stumbling back into the check out counter. The second was just as fiery as the first, and hurt tenfold in comparison. The third slug entered his right lung. Marik died choking on his own blood, and surrounded by hysterical screams.

00000

When he opened his eyes he was outside of the shop. He heard the door to it open up, and turned around in time to see his killer rush out of the store with his mask off and go right through Marik's transparent body. The man stopped by a few bushes to retch, and then quickly ran away from the crime scene. Inside the shop, audible only before the door sealed closed, Marik could still hear the screams of the young woman and both of her children.

"Well, third time's never really the charm, right? You do have some pretty bad luck though. If you'd gotten to the store only three minutes earlier, you would have completely missed him."

Marik hoped that he would not have to deal with Bakura again after this particular death, but by the sound of the sarcastic voice behind him, he really hadn't been lucky.

"I'll keep that in mind next time," Marik spat sarcastically as he turned around to face the other being. Instead of floating in the air as Bakura seemed to like doing, he was now standing before Marik like any other normal person, except for his bare feet and the fact that he was one half of the being called Death. His scythe was nowhere to be seen. Without it, he almost looked like a normal person, though his smile was still freakishly large.

"Still not giving up then?" Bakura questioned.

"Of course not. Next time I'll just get here faster and leave before he shows up. I'm not just going to stop trying because I die a few times," Marik scoffed.

"You will after that gets worse," Bakura insisted, with a gesture to Marik's front. He followed the other's smoldering dark gaze to the very place where he'd been shot. Three small holes were visible in the lavender hoodie Marik wore, all three of which were dribbling slow streams of blood. Marik frowned at the sight, but there wasn't really anything he could do about it. Now that Bakura had mentioned his injuries, he could feel the cut on his head and the throbbing it emitted as well.

"I won't," Marik argued. "I'm not giving up that easily, so you can stop hanging around me all the time. Don't you have some other dead people to torment anyways?"

"I do, but none are quite as interesting as you at the moment," Bakura answered with a cheeky smile. He took a few steps forward, not close enough to Marik to make the boy back up, but close enough for him to feel suspicious. "I've been alive for thousands of years. Can you blame me for being bored? People die every second, and the majority of them are boring as all hell. No fight left in them. They just give up and let Ryou or me take them away. They're not like _you_."

Bakura was nearly on top of him now, and while Marik wanted to move away from the strange being, he found himself once more rooted to the spot. He tugged at his legs, but they would not budge. He was forced to stare directly into the depths of Bakura's soulless black eyes. He didn't like it, but he stood strong, not allowing himself to be intimidated. Bakura leaned in close, until his unnaturally wide mouth was almost upon Marik. He could see teeth inside that smile, row after row of sharp, pointed teeth. Teeth just like a shark's, but at this point the shark sounded like the friendlier of the two.

"I think I'd like to get back to my life now," Marik said through gritted teeth. Bakura's maniacal grin widened until it stretched from one ear to another, and opened, wide enough that Marik felt like he was going to be devoured by that mouth. There was only pitch black in front of him, the same color as Bakura's eyes, and Marik felt like it was sucking him forward. He thought his body really was leaning in closer to the hole in front of him, regardless of his own will. Rather, it felt like he _wanted_ to fall into the fissure in front of him, though he knew he did not. He resisted—pathetically—but he resisted, and in an instant he was back to himself, and Bakura was standing far away from him, still grinning, but his too-wide mouth was closed. His eyes glinted coldly, like he knew something Marik did not.

"You said you didn't want me hanging around you anymore, correct? Well I'll stop then," Bakura said, not bothering to wait for Marik to answer the question himself. The pale man spun around in a half circle, and sort of giggled to himself. "Ryou told you to call for one of us if you ever gave up, didn't he? I'd prefer it if you called out my name instead of his."

And then he was gone so quickly that only the afterimage was left behind in his wake. In it, Marik could make out large wings, black as everything else about Bakura, and leathery like a bat's. An equally black tail curled behind him deliciously, writhing in some phantom ecstasy. Then the image was gone, and the memory of it was all Marik had to hold on to.

00000

When Marik woke up again he decided to take Bakura's advice. When he was asked to go out and get groceries, he accepted like usual, and headed for the store via the long route, as he had done yesterday's Friday. This time around, when Marik came to the side streets, after again making sure that there were no cars present, he flew past the death trap like Hell was at his heels (which, potentially, it was). He got to the store about three minutes earlier than he had yesterday. Hopefully, that would be enough to save him from the same way he'd died yesterday.

When he arrived, Marik was almost stunned to see the very same man who had killed him yesterday's Friday standing around outside the small building. Marik recognized him only from the small bit he'd seen of him with his mask off yesterday, but it was enough that he was sure this was the same man who'd killed him. He was acting inconspicuous enough, but he seemed fidgety, and he kept touching his front pocket, like there was something hidden in there. Marik only cast him a brief glance as he entered the store, keeping the man in mind as a reminder that he needed to be fast about this if he wanted to survive the robbery.

Because he had bought the exact same items yesterday, Marik knew exactly where to go to look for the groceries on the list. He grabbed them all quickly, paid, and was out the store with three minutes to spare. He left right as the man with the gun was heading on in. Inside the store were the same people he'd been held up with yesterday. He hoped that this time around, without his own presence there, the young mother with her children would be okay.

Marik headed back to his house after an impromptu decision to call the police and advise them to check out the small store. He was feeling rather good about himself, but remembered to be just as careful on the way back as he'd been on the way coming. When he reached the side streets (he still didn't trust the main ones) he sprinted past, after making sure no incoming traffic was headed his way. The first few times, this approach worked perfectly well, and Marik had no problems. Then, as he was passing a street that looked even more deserted than the others, Marik's horrible luck hit him.

He was falling before he even registered that his body was falling. All he knew of was a brief moment's pain, and then, to his dismay, Marik was dead again.

A car breezed through him as he stared in indignant shock at the thing that had ended his life this time around. It was a rock. A small, pointed rock, that had most likely just been waiting here for him to fall so that his head would hit it at just the right angle, smashing past the weak spot of his skull and entering his brain. Even while seeing it, Marik could not believe it. The car that had passed had screeched to a halt, and was now slowly driving back to where Marik's physical body laid, a pool of blood slowly widening around his head. In only a few short minutes there would be yet another crowd surrounding his body, eager to hear what had happened this time.

Marik had just enough time to curse both the vultures that fed on his tragedy and his rotten luck before he woke up on another Friday, ready to die all over again.

00000

On his next Friday, Marik sat down and scribed all that he knew about his days and following deaths. It went something like this:

_Wake up 9:23_

_ Killed by semi 10:14_

_ Get to store via long route 10:46 w/o running past streets (& die)_

_ Get to store via long route 10:43 w/ running past streets (get out)_

_ 16 min. to shop for Isis_

_ Store held up 11:02_

_Trip (& die)__11:12_

No matter how he looked at it, it seemed that if he left the house, he was destined to die. So Marik decided to just not leave the house. Screw the food. He could make a microwave dinner, and if his sister got pissed off at him, then so be it. If he lived to actually see her anger, it would be a blessing.

On his first Friday of the decision to not go to the store, Marik seemed to do pretty well for the most part. He did get yelled at (more specifically, he was called an ungrateful and selfish brat who could starve for the night and just not eat any food), but it really didn't faze him at all. For the first time since this whole thing had started, Marik felt like he was getting somewhere. If he were destined to die when he went outside, then fine, he would just not go outside. He _was_ going to stay alive, even if Bakura and Ryou believed he couldn't.

With nothing planned for the day and nothing in mind, Marik decided to spend his Friday watching tv. Nothing dangerous about that. So he did so for some time, until he got hungry and made his way to the kitchen. Luckily, Isis was nowhere to be seen, so Marik could sneak some food without having to hear her go off on him again. He rummaged around in the fridge, grabbed something edible, and stuck it in the microwave. Now, Marik was not very good at making food. His sister had pretty much always done it for him. So Marik did not know that there were just certain things you did not put in the microwave. As he left the kitchen in search of something new on tv, the microwave began to spark and smoke. By some freak hand of fate, the microwave exploded, and caught fire. The smoke detector that was always very carefully monitored did not go off, and smoke began to fill the house so quickly that the two inhabitants inside had no chance to get out. Both were dead in a manner of minutes, suffocated by the thick smoke.

On Marik's second Friday, he decided to go again the path of the previous day's Friday and not leave his house to go to the store. However, feeling immensely guilty for accidentally killing both his sister and himself this time around, Marik stayed far far away from the microwave. He made himself a sandwich instead.

That was all fine and dandy until about mid-evening, when his stomach began to hurt immensely. The pain got so bad that he was rushed to the hospital, where the doctor that saw him explained he only had a mild case of food poisoning, nothing bad. Apparently the bread he'd used had been a little too old, and Marik hadn't noticed. He would be given some medicine, and then be allowed to leave. And so the doctor passed some directions along to a nurse, who returned with a pill that Marik took. Unfortunately, somewhere along the road the nurse had grabbed the wrong pill, and Marik was dead before midnight from acute liver failure.

On the third Friday Marik decided to just not eat _any_ food at all. He would be hungry, but he'd be alive. Or at least that was what he thought. He tripped and fell down the stairs all the way from the top of the landing, coming to a stop at a weird angle. Now Marik had fallen down these stairs before and been perfectly okay, other than having a strained ankle, or something similar. This time he broke his neck and died instantly.

00000

"Bakura! Bakura! Dammit, where are you? You better show the hell up!"

"You called?"

Marik was only semi-startled to spin around and see Bakura aloft in the air, as was his usual manner, with an alarming grin stretching across his face. Marik was pissed. All other times when he'd been in his spiritual form, he'd felt an absence of any real emotions, but now he could quite clearly feel the rage thudding in his ears and veins and making his fists clench.

"Is this all some kind of a joke?" he asked.

"Pardon?"

"Is this all some joke? You find it funny to see me die over and over again? You and Ryou up there watching me, trying to trump each other with who'll have me die in the most ridiculous manner?" Marik questioned coldly. Bakura's eyebrows raised in mock-surprise.

"Ryou is horribly offended that you would think that of him," Bakura said.

"Just answer the damn question."

"Well there are two answers, depending on how you want me to say it. If you want me to lie, then I'll say I feel completely awful about your rotten luck, and I don't find any of this funny at all. Rather, I'm _hoping_ that you'll somehow be able to beat what Fate has in store for you. Now if you want me to be truthful…" Bakura shrugged, trailing off. "Well I guess if you wanted that answer, I'd have to tell you that I find all of it _hilarious_." Marik's eyes narrowed distastefully.

"So this _is_ all your fault then," he stated. Bakura surprised him by laughing. The sound was cold and dark, and even more disconcerting when Bakura began to circle around him, and the chilling noise came from all around him, surrounding him and boxing him in.

"_My_ fault? It's nothing of the sort," he said decisively. "And Ryou wouldn't _dream_ of doing something so cruel. No, this is all just some great coincidence, and I do have to admit that I'm glad you keep fighting. It just makes things _so_ much more interesting."

"Well I'm glad at least _someone_ is having fun," Marik growled. "I wouldn't want my death to have absolutely no meaning."

"It has plenty of meaning."

The response surprised Marik, and he was even more surprised when he looked up at the being in front of him, and after only looking in some other direction for a second, was confronted with a completely different person than the one he'd just been talking to. Ryou was in front of him now, smiling serenely. Whereas Bakura had been able to produce nothing from him but anger, in front of Ryou now Marik felt embarrassed for lashing out. His hands unclenched and he stood awkwardly in front of the ethereal creature.

"Every death has a meaning, doesn't it? All lives have meaning, and so that is why a person's death must naturally mean something as well. That's why you're fighting so hard to keep yourself from dying," Ryou said.

"Yeah, I guess," Marik mumbled. That was why he was fighting, wasn't it? Because his life had meaning. Because he wasn't ready to give that up yet. Because he didn't feel like he _should_ have to give that up yet.

"Don't pay any mind to Bakura. He's just a bit irritated that you haven't given up yet," Ryou said.

"He sure doesn't seem too irritated about it."

"He is," Ryou stated confidently. "He is having some fun watching you try over and over to survive, but that same yearning for life really irritates him too. He's a demon, so of course he loves to see people give up and despair. He always looks for the worst in people, and doesn't really like seeing their strengths. Like your determination."

"Well you tell Bakura that I'm not going to give up any time soon! I'm going to beat this thing," Marik announced triumphantly. "And when I do, I'm going to shove my victory in his face."

00000

The next several Fridays were spent dying in a variety of different ways, from the normal (there were a hell of a lot of ways to get sick) to the absolutely bizarre (a meteoroid actually landing dead-center in the heart of the house he shared with Isis), and the freak accidents (hair dryer accidentally dropping into the sink and finding just enough water). Marik was more acquainted with the weakness of the human body than he'd ever wished he could be.

Eventually he decided to just stay out of his house completely. It was a hell of a lot more dangerous outside, and Marik normally survived much later into the evening when he stayed indoors, but dying in his house often carried the unfortunate consequences of the death of his sister as well, and that was not something he wanted to be burdened with.

His death was one thing. Isis' was another. If he were destined to die, the least he could do was keep Isis out of it. She'd done even less than he had to deserve the welcoming embrace of an early grave.

So Marik tried walking around town, but more often than not happened to run into the same robber who'd killed him in the store, and subsequently, fall victim to his bullets once again. He tried hanging out with his friends at the arcade, and that went well until he was invited back to someone's house for a continuation of whatever game they were playing, and on the way up to the building, Marik got stuck in the elevator and (depending on what time he went up at) either slowly suffocated from lack of air, or died in a crash at the bottom. If he hung out at the arcade but denied returning to so-and-so's house when they all left, he died from an unfortunate accident with a dog that someone really should have kept better watch on.

He tried leaving town on his motorcycle, but that was just asking for an accident (on the occasions where he didn't crash, he ran out of gas and was mugged and stabbed). He tried leaving on foot, but ran into the same problem as when the gas ran out. Marik was slowly getting used to the idea that no matter what he seemed to do, he was screwed. So he went to ask someone for help.

Two Fridays were spent researching scenarios similar to his own, and people who reputedly had been able to help. Only two such people lived close to Marik, and the first was a total quack, so that really only left one person. A mister Pegasus J. Crawford, some crazy American who said he had the powers to read people's minds. Marik was a bit weary about going to see the guy (his manor was a bit far away, and there were no guarantees that the guy would be able to help, or that he would even make it), but at this point, he was desperate.

00000

"Hello~! Marik-boy! What a pleasure to meet with you!"

Marik's initial reaction upon entering the Crawford manor and meeting the man himself? Tacky. From the man's red suit and gaudy silver hair to the paintings hung all over the walls, the man and the place all seemed like a scam. Marik was almost beginning to feel unlucky that he hadn't perished in an accident.

Pegasus led him through room and hallway, babbling on in a forward manner about the history of this room, or the meaning behind that painting (either Marik couldn't appreciate good art, or all the paintings were horrid; however, Pegasus did not seem to think so), or how his darling dead wife had so loved this or that. It was completely awkward. The man spoke like he and Marik were years old friends, and after going on some extensive rant about some subject, each time Pegasus would look over at Marik like he expected him to join in the conversation with something witty, yet all Marik could come up with was "I see" or "Mmmm." He was beginning to think it would be a good investment to just allow himself to die and try the loon's house on tomorrow's Friday.

"But you're not going to leave, are you? Because you're desperate. Right, Marik-boy?" Pegasus said with a knowing smile. The two men had come to a stop in a strangely bare room, and Marik had been trying to guess what Pegasus was going to talk about this time. The man's strange sentence cut straight through his mindless musings and grabbed his attention fiercely.

"What?" Marik questioned. But Pegasus did not respond with. He winked with the eye not covered by his veil of silver hair and took a seat at one of the two cushioned chairs in the middle of the small room. He gestured for Marik to take the one across from him, and so with only a small hesitation Marik did so.

"How did you know that I was thinking of leaving?" Marik questioned, leaning forward a bit. He'd read of course that Pegasus was said to have mind-reading abilities, but Marik had immediately dismissed this finding. His sister might have believed it, but he liked to believe in the facts. He would have had a hard time accepting that he was truly living the same day over and over again because of some vow he'd made to Death if he didn't keep picturing Bakura's smiling gash of a mouth every time he slept.

Pegasus grinned and moved a hand to sweep back the left part of his long hair in an exaggerated movement—to reveal a sunken in eyelid. Marik recoiled from the sight and only settled back down comfortably in his chair when the hair fell back into place. He had seen far worse than a missing eye with the numerous times he'd died, but each time he'd witnessed his ruined body, it was from the detached perspective of his spiritual body, where the apathy of everything cushioned the shock.

"I lost my eye several years ago in an unfortunate accident. Since then, I seemed to have gained a strange new ability to clearly hear everything a person thinks in their mind, as long as they are close enough to me. That's why I know what you are thinking. That's why I believe that something very strange is happening to you," Pegasus explained. He somehow managed to sound serious, despite his smile. Yet in a second that image was gone, and he was the same silly, gaudy man as before. "But forgive me, Marik-boy, you'll have to elaborate some. I'm afraid all I've gotten is something about your death."

"Well the truth of the matter is that at some point today, I'm going to die. I don't know how, or when it'll happen, but it will happen," Marik began tentatively. Pegasus' smile had shortened some, and he seemed to be paying enough attention, so Marik continued. "I made a deal with Death. This day will keep repeating over and over until I find some way to prevent my death, or I give up and accept it. I've been living this Friday over and over again for close to a month now, and honestly, I'm running out of patience, and time. You're pretty much my last hope."

"So it's like Groundhog Day then?" Pegasus questioned. Marik blinked at the random nature of the question.

"Umm… sure…?" Marik said. Pegasus ignored his uncertainty and nodded definitively to himself, and then lapsed into a period of silence. Marik looked around the room wearily, growing steadily more and more agitated as time passed. An unfortunate side-effect to his frequent dying was an increased case of nerves. Whenever he was still, Marik was constantly gauging the death potential of some seemingly harmless object, and wondering if he should make a bolt for it. Staying in one spot for too long was like asking to be killed, but running away was just as bad. For instance, Pegasus could right now be waiting for a hitman to come and assassinate him (stranger things had happened than that). On the other hand, if he tried leaving the room, he could trip on the chichi maroon-colored rug underfoot, and then brain himself on the pointed corner of the red-stained coffee table they sat around.

"Well Marik-boy, I'm afraid I don't know what to tell you. I've never encountered anything like what you've told me before. If you are repeating this day over and over again, then I doubt a simple man like myself would be able to make much of a difference, no matter how powerful and elegant he may be," Pegasus announced cheerfully.

"So this entire trip was all for nothing then?" Marik asked with no small amount of exasperation.

"Not for nothing, my dear boy," Pegasus said with a flourish. He stood from the chair and gave a pat on Marik's back, directing him forward through yet another hallway and into another room. Marik's skin crawled where the man's hand rested, and he tried to inch away slowly, but the hand would not be moved. It only became more insistent on remaining there, though perhaps that was only his imagination.

"It seems to me that you are experiencing some very bad luck. I have here, gathered from my many expeditions around the world, various different good luck charms used by different cultures. I will bestow upon you whichever ones you wish to take with you," Pegasus announced grandiosely. His hand finally left Marik's shoulder to join its twin in widely gesturing to the room the two now found themselves in.

The bad paintings had returned; with their numbers was a portrait of a smiling blonde that Marik knew from Pegasus' ramblings to be his deceased wife. On the floor of the room were a great many glass display cases with old tablets and pots and a number of strange artifacts, a great many of which Marik had never seen before. Pegasus had a small museum right here in his house. Marik openly marveled at the displays, though kept in mind that he was here for a reason. So much glass in one place was just asking for trouble.

He wandered around the room with some caution, while at the other end Pegasus was a flurry of activity, bounding from one display case to another, only remaining in one spot long enough to give a crinkled look at an object before deciding to grab it anyways and stroll away to another. Marik had only gotten to the third case by the time Pegasus had finished with them all and was upon him once again. Marik couldn't help shivering as the man approached. It was like being bombarded over and over again by the man's invasive presence without even a chance to recuperate.

"Ahh, Marik-boy~! I have with me some charms that I think will do you good~!" Pegasus exclaimed. And then a manner of small items were thrust in Marik's hands.

"In Norse folklore, acorns and the oak trees they came from were thought to bring good fortune. This particular acorn is over one hundred years old! Next we have a specimen of the plant Dracaena, or lucky bamboo, and a four leaf clover. Found that in a large clover field in Ireland, a very lucky find," Pegasus confided with a conspirator's whisper.

The next item he pointed to was a small wooden doll decorated with bright colors and small feathers. "This is a Kachina doll, from the Zuni back home in the United States. It is believed that if you make the spirit inside the doll a part of your family, it will give you protection from natural disasters."

After the doll came a bent coin with a hole in the middle, from which it was hung around a string. Pegasus placed that around Marik's neck and told him to keep it there for good luck. The last item was a cat's eye stone, which was supposedly meant to clear obstacles and help a person move ahead in life, as well as ward off the evil eye, ghosts, spirits, and negative influences from the planets. This last one actually had Marik hiding a small chuckle. He found it amusing to think that a small little pebble like this could possibly hold off the spirit _he_ was dealing with.

"But of course I have no idea if any of these things will work. It's all just myth and legend, you understand. But if they do, be sure to come and visit again, eh Marik-boy?" Pegasus suggested with a wink. Marik tried not to shudder too visibly, although if the man could really read his mind, it probably didn't matter.

Finally, finally! Marik was allowed out of the large Crawford manor, pockets laden with a random assortment of charms, and an old, beat up coin around his neck. He was very suspicious of this stuff actually being able to keep him alive, but he already head it all, and there was nothing left to do now but try it all out.

As he approached his motorbike, he eyed it with suspicion. More often than he cared to count, his baby had been the cause of his death. He'd managed to make it here to Pegasus' manor without dying, but was he really ready to tempt fate again by driving it all the way back? The wooden Kachina seemed to tell him to try it, and so with a long-drawn sigh, Marik hopped on and strapped his helmet tightly to his head. No better way to test the effectiveness of the charms he'd just received then to rush headfirst into oncoming death.

The way back to his house was surprisingly uneventful. Of course there were the near-misses with trucks and cars that randomly swerved out to hit him, possessed by whoever had it in for him, but over the past several Fridays, Marik had gotten surprisingly good at dodging such things. But he made it without dying, and that was what mattered.

Feeling a bit encouraged by this result, Marik decided to make some food. He had learned well from previous Fridays that there were a lot of ways to die from eating, and so now he only ate something once having thoroughly inspected it first, and watched the microwave for every second that it operated. Even though he knew better now than the leave aluminum in the microwave, the thing still exploded or caught fire every once in a while. This time, neither event happened, and Marik was left still standing, and with some food to boot.

Right as he had just finished eating, the doorbell to the house rang. Isis went to open it, while Marik wondered whom it could be. On none of the other Fridays had someone ever come over, or at least not while he'd been at the house.

It was his friends, and they wanted to see if he wanted to come with them to the arcade. Marik accepted the offer, but not without some measure of confusion. All other days when he'd gone out hang out with them, he'd always met them on the streets, or someone had called him. Never before had his friends come over his house.

As the day progressed, other small things happened that were different than the norm. The games they played were in a different order, or sometimes certain games were left out completely. When they all went to a nearby restaurant to eat, instead of spilling water all over himself in a pathetic attempt to gain the cute waitress' attention, Jounouchi actually worked up the courage to ask for her number. And when Marik was invited over after dinner and accepted, although the elevator did stop moving for a short time, it came back to life with a sudden lurch and worked perfectly from that point on. Throughout the day Marik continually slipped a hand into his pocket to touch the good luck charms Pegasus had given him, or clutch the coin around his neck, just in case one of these items were actually protecting him from harm and somehow changing the path of his day.

The day was winding down to an end when Marik left. It was 11:43 at night, and he had yet to die. This was the farthest Marik had survived thus far, and he was daring to hope that he might survive the rest of Friday night. He didn't have his motorbike with him, and that meant that he had to walk back home on the streets and was vulnerable, but he wasn't sure driving the bike for a third time today was a wise decision.

So he walked. He walked slowly, careful not to fall and trip on anything, and always watched out for a stray vehicle or passerby. He saw no one. The emptiness of the street was a wonderful stroke of luck, but it was getting to the point where it was so empty that Marik was starting to feel uncomfortable about it all.

He was only yards away from his door. He could see Isis' silhouette in the living room, picking something off from the ground. A glance at his phone informed him that it was 11:55. Five more minutes to go. He might make it. He didn't want to hope for anything, but now, so close to Saturday, he couldn't help hoping. His heartbeat sped up rapidly and his breathe came that much quicker. And then he began to feel a pain start in his chest and spread outward from the epicenter, and Marik was brought to his knees. He kept moving, desperate to reach his house, as if he could make it there the time would not matter and the pain would go away and he would survive, but then the pain only increased that much more, and Marik lay still on the street.

00000

Marik's spiritual body was certainly looking the worst for wear. He bled from numerous wounds on his body, most concentrated around his chest and stomach, but some spread out on limbs and stranger surfaces. He'd been shot, cut, hit, stabbed, burnt, broken, shocked, and so much more. The newest addition to the aching mess that was Marik's body was the pain in his chest, which he only realized once he'd died was a heart attack.

"You're going to kill yourself at this rate," Bakura said solemnly from behind him. Marik chuckled bitterly. He was not surprised by the darker side of Death's appearance. He'd almost been expecting the man to show up.

"I thought I was already dead, and this is just a result of my trying to prevent that," he said.

"Your spiritual body can only take so much. If you push it so far there won't even be anything left for Ryou and me to collect. You'll just disappear," Bakura warned.

Behind him, Marik heard the rustle of wings sliding against one another, and then a small brush of wind as Bakura flew around so that they were face to face. For the first time since Marik had met the other male, his mouth was not stretched into a gruesome smile, but was a thin line as the demon looked on at the sorry mess that was Marik's crumpled up form. His wings were left out, though had settled against his back. Even his black tail was suspiciously still.

"I know you want to live again, but you won't be able to. Even those charms were only able to keep you away from death until the last minute. You're not going to get out of this. Just come with me," Bakura said. He offered his hand to Marik, and the boy was so tired and weary in his beaten down body that he almost accepted it. Then he remembered, and shook his head.

"I'm not done yet," Marik argued. "I can still keep going."

"You can't," Bakura said, and offered his hand again, a bit more urgently this time. Marik shook his head once more and smiled at the man in front of him instead.

"You know, for a demon, you're surprisingly kind. I would have expected Ryou to be the one here worrying about me," he said. The suggestion of kindness startled Bakura, and his tail lashed violently from side to side as he tried to deny the accusation.

"It's not that! I just want to take your soul! I've got a quota to meet you know, a quota!" he argued, though to Marik, even that seemed a bit half-hearted.

"Well maybe you'll get it yet," Marik said with a quiet chuckle. The statement started Bakura from his show of anger, though before he could question the ambiguity of it, Marik was already back in life.

00000

When Marik came back, he was no longer putting his all into his survival, he found. He still went through the motions of it all, but it was like he had come to some internal decision in his small talk with Bakura. He was going to die. One day, he would die. Maybe he could push the date further back, or maybe it would be today, but either way he would die. The knowledge hung over him, and it made it harder and harder to come back from each death. His spiritual body was becoming worse and worse as well, and it was slowly beginning to affect his physical body as well. When Marik moved in certain ways, he could feel his sides hurt, aches from phantom bullet wounds. He almost always had a bad headache, and whenever he did anything too strenuous his chest began to hurt. He was dying in more ways than one.

When he'd woken up on the Friday after the Friday that he'd gone to see Pegasus, all the things Pegasus had given him were, of course gone. Marik contemplated going to see the man again to get them back, and actually did a few times, but he couldn't stand to be in Pegasus' presence for that long a time, and he always died anyways. He began to find other small things that would give him protection and good luck, things that he could easily obtain each day he woke up.

None of these things worked, and so Marik began looking more and more earnestly into other methods of protection. He spent almost all of his days on the computer, scanning article after article, and when he did go outside it was to meet up with stranger and stranger people who offered to help him. His sister confronted him several times about his strange behavior, and once Marik actually explained his situation to her, but all that resulted in was a trip to a therapist, and then a car accident.

None of these things seemed to work, so the next course of action Marik took was to plan out his entire day and try to keep safe. He had lived through a great many repeating Fridays now, and knew most of what would happen on every single one. He made a list of all the places he went and all the times he died and how, and then from that point on tried to act so that he was away from these places. That worked somewhat; Marik was able to stay alive a bit longer than normal, but then he just wound up dying in other ways.

Nothing about these Fridays was different than any of the others, with the exception being that he was almost positive he was being followed. At least once every Friday Marik felt himself being watched, although when he turned around he never saw anything. Several other times he saw a fleeting white flash of light that reminded him of his first death, right before Bakura had shown up and tried to reap him.

He was positive it was Bakura that was following him around. Whoever it was was trying very hard to not be noticed, and the sneakiness of the act fit Bakura's personality perfectly. He had a feeling that if it were Ryou, the angel would have just confronted him to let him know he was being watched. Marik didn't know whether to be flattered that Death was paying extra attention to him, or fearful. If he were being followed almost constantly, then it meant he must have really been getting bad.

00000

Marik spent what he decided would be his last Friday with his sister and his friends. He did not want to give up. He did not want to die. But he was tired, and he hurt almost constantly, and he was afraid to continue on any further. He decided that it would just end.

As if whoever was in charge of deciding his fate sensed his intentions, Marik's last Friday was as good as he could hope for. He got the groceries he sister wanted and was not ran over or shot. He helped her make lunch, and after eating went to see his friends. He hung out with them at the arcade and did not have to worry about one of the games breaking own and somehow electrocuting him. For the first time since his never-ending Friday began, Marik did not worry about dying, but only concentrated on having a good time. He knew that he would die. He knew that he could not fight against it anymore. So he wanted his last day to be spent having fun and not worrying, and so it was.

He told his sister that he was going to bed early, and once his door had closed and she had settled downstairs watching tv, he called Bakura. The demon materialized in the middle of his bedroom, large crooked staff in hand.

"So you've finally given up?" he asked.

"Yeah, I guess I have," Marik admitted with a shrug. "I think I understand the reason Ryou let me keep living this long. He wanted me to realize there wasn't anything I could do, didn't he? Once your time is up, it's up." Bakura nodded.

"Ryou may be an angel, but he can be every bit as cruel as I can," The demon said, and took a seat beside Marik on his bed. The other male had a faraway look to his face, and his gashed mouth seemed strangely small. Everything was wrong about this picture. Marik should not be sitting here, accepting his fate and talking to the very same being that was going to end his life. He'd been fighting against the very idea for so long and so actively that he should never have given up. He should be forcing Bakura to allow him to live. Yet he did not move from an inch from his bed, and thus from his Death.

"Most people don't want to accept the fact that they've died. Humans have such a strong instinct to survive that they think of themselves as immortal. It comes as a horrible surprise to many of them that they can, in fact, die," Bakura explained with a wry little chuckle. "Ryou thinks it's easier to let them down slowly, and make them understand on their own terms that they aren't escaping us. If they are confronted with their death over and over again, they'll eventually have to realize that there's nothing they can do to stop it. He thinks he's being kind, but he doesn't realize that he's more similar to me than he thinks."

Marik nodded absently beside him. His hands clenched and unclenched in his lap. "But for some people that's really the only way to do it. I wasn't ready to accept my death when you told me about it," he said to Bakura.

"Are you ready to now?" Bakura shot back. His head turned to look at Marik, and even though the entire room was bathed in darkness, Bakura's black eyes stood out sharp as ever with their infinite depths.

"I am. I'm ready to die."

Bakura nodded slowly and stood. His hands slithered up the length of his staff. Slender fingers grabbed at a point on the staff and from it pulled the huge blade forth that had almost taken Marik's life the first time he'd seen it.

"Wait a minute. Could we go somewhere else? I don't want it to happen in here," Marik said, with a gesture to the floor underneath him. Bakura nodded again, and with a quick flick of his hands, the two were no longer in Marik's bedroom, but an empty parking lot. A stray piece of paper slid sulkily around the pavement, but other than that the entire place was silent.

"So," Marik started. He kicked the piece of newspaper around half-heartedly, his eyes straying anywhere but upon the huge blade that would take his life. "What'll it be like? When I die?"

"I think you'd rather ask Ryou that question. I'm not really the person who deals with that kind of thing," Bakura said with a grunt. He was angry, Marik realized. He didn't want Ryou to come out. Marik almost laughed at the idea.

"No, I'd rather hear it from you. As we already said, Ryou can be a bit… evasive. I want to know what I'm in for," Marik said with a smile. Bakura looked up at him sharply, then flushed angrily as he noticed his mistake. When he spoke again he was still angry, though it was more with himself now. Marik thought that secretly, the demon was pleased.

"I don't know anything about up here. I wasn't there when my race originally fell, and I've always been a demon. So I can't tell you anything about that. But if I win over Ryou, and your soul goes down to my home, you will face countless tortures at the hands of my brothers and sisters. They will inflict more pain upon you then you ever thought imaginable. It will never end. If you're lucky, you'll wind up with a lesser demon as your personal torturer, but even then you'll still wish you'd never existed. It will be awful, and you will curse me for sending you there," Bakura said. Marik nodded and took it all in stride.

"So you won't be the one doing the torture though, huh?" Marik questioned. Bakura looked up at him again, both puzzled and surprised by the next question and the joking tone of voice with which it was said. It made for a very strange expression on his face that was almost sort of cute, if you ignored the fact that he was a demon and one half of the entity called Death, and his mouth was still much larger than a normal human's. Eventually Bakura got himself back under control, and his mouth screwed into a tight little scowl.

"No, I won't be. I have to remain here on Earth, and do my duties as Death," he answered. Marik threw his head back and laughed. It was a freeing laugh, surprisingly light for the fact that he was only minutes away from death. There was a breeze going through the parking lot, a bit cold, but instead of shivering and wrapping his arms around him, Marik opened them up wider.

"Too bad," he said, "I bet we could have had fun."

"Yeah well, Ryou and I should probably start now. You're not going anywhere until we decide which one gets your soul," Bakura said, changing the subject. He was visibly perplexed by the strange route it was taking, and it only further lightened Marik's own mood. Especially since the next part of Marik's decision to die was going to be even more surprising.

"There's no need for that. I decided that I would die, and so I will. I want you to take my soul, Bakura," Marik said. He enjoyed very much the look _that_ brought to the demon's face, but then in an instant he was rethinking his decision as the surprise faded from the other male's face, and instead Bakura rounded on him with fury. He grabbed Marik's shoulder's so tightly he thought the skin would bruise. The movement took Marik unaware for more reasons than one. He had never touched Bakura before, even when he'd been only a few inches away, and for some reason, he'd always assumed that the man was some kind of transparent image instead of flesh and blood and solid bone. Now he was face-to-face with how very wrong he'd been about all that, and Marik could hardly force himself to breathe as those deep eyes stared into his own, full of rage and emotion.

"What are you playing at here?"

"Nothing."

"I don't believe that," Bakura snorted. "One day you think you'll be able to push yourself back into life; now you've not only accepted your death, but are saying that you want _me_ to take your soul? Even with everything I just told you?"

"I wanted to know what I was in for," Marik provided, not so helpfully. Bakura's smoldering gaze narrowed, and he leaned so close to Marik's face that he could feel the man's breath fanning against his cheeks. Again, just the idea that he _could_ breathe took Marik by such surprise that he stilled completely under the male's savage touch.

"Ryou can take you with him. You'll be _happy_ up there. You probably _deserve_ to be up there. Why would you give that up?" Bakura said lowly, his eyes searching Marik's face like they could find the answer there. His word's brought Marik's own ability to speak back to him, and his reached up to remove Bakura's grasp from him gently.

"Maybe I don't think that I deserve to be happy. And maybe I think that you're the more interesting out of the two of you," Marik said softly. Bakura remained quiet for a second longer, still searching Marik for a sign of something. Then he closed his eyes, took a step back, and put the blade of his scythe back into the staff. The staff itself he tapped twice of the pavement, and just like that it disappeared.

"Well then you're an idiot," Bakura said with a frown.

"Maybe," Marik agreed, "but it's what I want."

"And it's what you'll get," Bakura said. He took a step back towards Marik, successfully closing their distance once again, and then took another step, until their bodies were pressed flush against one another. Marik's cheeks burned brightly, but he was soon distracted by his position from a sudden gust of wind as Bakura's wings opened wide and he closed them around the two of them.

The meager light provided by the moon and the stars was suddenly cut off, as was the sound of the wind, cut off by the shielding of Bakura's wings. Marik could not see anything, but he could hear plenty. He could hear the sounds of his breath and his heartbeat, both ragged and frantic. There was a curious absence of any noise coming from Bakura's end. The way he knew that the male was even still here was because he felt the same rooted sensation he had felt before when in Bakura's presence. He could not move an inch, even if he'd wanted to. And he knew what was coming next. He knew that Bakura's wide mouth was opening wide, wide, and he felt himself being pulled forward, into the gaping depths of blackness he could now see before him, for it was blacker even then the black made by Bakura's wings. Marik felt himself being pulled, and fading the more he was pulled, and he did not resist this time. He had accepted his fate. He knew that he was at his end. So he did not fight it. He let himself be pulled into the darkness, and that was it.

* * *

><p>So yup, that's that. Not really satisfied with this. I loved the idea in my head, but then I wrote it and it was kind of eh. So that's that. Do't know if anyone noticed, but the dress-style for Bakura and Ryou is similar to the card Change of Heart. I wanted to have a bit more symbolism with that, but that's not the way things turned out, so oh well.<p>

So I'm reading Rewind 1 again. This is my forth time. I know I'm a loser, but don't judge. It's seriously like the best fanfic I've read. If you are a true Thiefshipper, then you have to go and read it. But anyways. So next chapter is Gotta Get Down On Friday. If I say that the alternative title for that is Prison Bitches, does that make anyone excited?

So anyways, like always, please remember to review. I love hearing from people, and your reviews really motivate me to actually write and feel like I'm doing something productive instead of just something I have to get out. They also help me to not just decide "Screw this" and go write some of my original fiction. Because I've been thinking about that stuff lately, and with NaNo coming up, it's very tempting... But anyways, thanks.


	13. Gotta Get Down On Friday

Agh! So sorry for the lateness! I promise, this is not going to become a reoccurring theme. Next Friday there WILL be a chapter update!

So, the excuse for why this one was not up on time: it wasn't finished. Like I said last chapter, I got a job, and that's taking up a lot more writing time than I figured it would. Along with that, in my creative writing class, we've been writing and workshopping flash fiction pieces. I've already workshopped mine, but since then I've written like five of the things! I usually focus on writing much longer pieces of fiction, so whoever would have thought I'd get so into flash fiction? Maybe if I crank out enough of them I'll see if I can publish a collection or something, ffft. Also finished writing chapter twenty-two for whatever reason. So yeah, expect that.

But so chapter! I've never taken myself for a cross-over type of person. But here we are! So yes, this is a cross-over. Perhaps the most inane one in the world, or in the very least, The YGO fanfiction archive. A little backstory first. So over the summer when I came back from college, the oldest of my hoard of younger brothers was all "Devon! Let's watch something!" and I was like "Kay." so we ended up watching all of _Prison Break_, and four seasons of _Lost_. His suggestion. I suggested _Dexter_. But so yeah! This particular chapter is a cross-over between YGO, Prison Break, and Lost. Pretty much no spoilers whatsoever for Lost, and maybe some very verrryy basic ones for exactly how Michael Scofield busts out of Fox River in the first season, because I am not clever enough to think of my own prison escape plan. Unfortunately, there wasn't really any place to stick in Dexter Morgan, unless he was like, some crazy murderer, so no _Dexter_ spoilers. Said characters may be OOC, because I have not watched these shows since summer. But I doubt it really matters, because you aren't here for them. Also! And this is IMPORTANT! There is porn in this chapter! I wasn't going to put any, but then I figured well they ARE in prison, and with the chapter title, it just needed a little spice. So yay porn? Love me? Oh, and some random Prideshipping. Kind of. Sort of. I don't even know. Maybe if you squint...?

Oh, and if there's mistakes, I'll fix them later, when I get off work. Just went through with spell check for now and decided "Well, that's good enough!" I want to take a nap. Or at least lay down.

**Disclaimer!:** I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh. Or the song "Friday." Or the tv shows _Prison Break_, _Lost_, and _Dexter_. Or the characters Michael Scofield, John Locke, and Dexter Morgan. I own nothing!

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><p>Chapter Thirteen: Gotta Get Down On Friday (a.k.a. Prison Bitches)<p>

There were two thoughts running through Bakura's head. The first was that this was pathetic. Utterly _pathetic_.

The second was that if his Ring hadn't been confiscated upon entering the dungeon-like building, he would have killed the man taking the pictures. The light was too bright and it made him squint, something he surmised made him look like some pathetic wannabe trying to act tough. Of course, his current _position_ only made that image come to mind even more so.

He was shuffled into a large yard populated with close to a hundred men all looking at the newcomers. Bakura scowled at them all as the handcuffs were taken off his wrists, and then he immediately headed away from the others he'd been grouped together with. Footsteps coming from behind him let him know that someone was following him, and in only a matter of seconds Marik was beside him, huffing loudly, as though he'd run a one hundred meter dash.

"Damn, do you move _fast_!" the Egyptian teen said beside him. Bakura uttered nothing, but his scowl darkened, and that spoke more of his current mood then words could. He settled against an empty section of the chain-link fence, and irritatingly enough, Marik settled down against the fence right next to him. Bakura's sharp eyes moved from one person to another, scanning each and weighing them up carefully against one another in his mind. Marik, on the other hand, held a hand to his forehead to block the harsh sunlight, and looked at the area like it was some exciting new playground.

"Well this doesn't look too bad!" he exclaimed. "I mean, things could be worse, sure, but there's only four guard towers, and the guys don't look all that bad. I don't even think that one guard has a gun!"

That was more than enough for Bakura to handle. Even if Marik was trying to be optimistic about their current predicament, it was only coming out as being even more annoying than Marik already was on any given day. The male closed his eyes and tried to calm his temper, but then he heard Marik open his mouth _again_, and he shot away from the fence and pushed Marik even harder against it.

"There is _nothing_ good about the situation we find ourselves in at all!" he hissed. About fifteen yards away, a patrolling guard had caught sight of Bakura's move and was slowly advancing on the two males, carefully raising his gun in case he had to break up a fight. Bakura saw this out of his peripherals, but he did not let go of Marik's uniform blue collar just yet. He let his glare continue to drill into the other male's eyes, and then, when the guard was only a few feet away, released Marik and stomped away to a different section of fence.

"Anything going on here?" the guard asked. Marik looked at the man with some measure of confusion; he hadn't even noticed the man's approach. Then he smiled cheerfully and waved the guy off.

"No, just getting into a friendly debate, that's all! We do it all the time!" he insisted, and then, because Bakura obviously wanted nothing to do with him right now, Marik marched right up to the other male again.

"I'm just trying to say that it could be worse," he said, continuing right where he'd left off, as if the entire choking episode hadn't even happened. "If you really hate it that much, why don't you let Ryou take over the body?"

Bakura snorted and rolled his eyes. "Do you really think that pansy would last a minute in here? _Please_. No, I think as long as the Ring is still within range, I'm going to stay in control for as long as I can. I doubt you'd be much use if someone tried to take advantage of my pathetic little host."

Marik's face screwed up in a very obvious look of disgust, and a shudder rippled through his lithe body. "I can't be focusing on trying to save _your_ hikari. I have to keep a watch out for myself. You know what they say about pretty blondes in places like this."

"The way you say it, it sounds like you actually expect such a thing to be a possibility," Bakura said.

"Well of course it would be! I mean, look at me!" Marik said, gesturing wildly.

"I am, unfortunately."

"Hey!" And so this time it was Marik who jumped on Bakura, and within seconds, the guard who had been watching them before was on the two of them, separating them before punches could even be thrown. Both were punished and taken to their separate rooms, where they remained even while the other men gathered for dinner. And so Bakura and Marik spent their first night in prison.

00000

"You will not _believe_ who my cell mate is."

It was the following day and the first time that Bakura had gotten a chance to see Marik since the two of them had been locked up in their cells. The two were huddled together at the end of a bare plastic table, the only one that hadn't been occupied. All around them the other inmates ate their food, but neither male had yet to touch theirs.

"Funny, I was just about to say the same thing to you," Marik replied with a grin. Bakura raised his eyebrows and Marik elaborated.

"Well I have two roommates actually. The first kept looking at me strangely, so I told him I had a personality disorder that was likely to emerge and murder him if he pissed me off." The Egyptian shrugged like it was no big deal, but Bakura did have to give him props for his resourcefulness. "But my other roommate, _that's_ the important one. Seto freaking Kaiba! Can you imagine? What the hell did he do to wind up in jail?"

"Probably the same thing the Pharaoh did," Bakura said maliciously, enjoying the way Marik's face grew even more startled at this new piece of information.

"_No!_" he said.

"Oh yesss," Bakura hissed, sliding in closer to Marik, smirk right at his ear. "He's my cellmate. Imagine how surprised I was to see him. I don't even care that I have to stay here with him of all people; I'm too busy laughing at him. He won't tell me what he's done to get himself here, but I'll work it out of him eventually." And he would. Bakura would never pass down an opportunity to laugh at the expanse of his most hated enemy, even if they both were trapped in the same situation.

"Do you see him anywhere? I don't think I can truly accept this until I see it," Marik whispered back into his own ear, just as excited as Bakura about the prospect of the Pharaoh's presence in their ranks. Bakura grinned horridly, for he had not once taken his eyes off the man since he'd left their shared cell. He pointed him out to Marik, whose head moved away from Bakura's finally and laughed. His eyes radiated merriment, and in an instant he was up and sauntering over to the table the Pharaoh and Kaiba sat together at, somehow managing to still look seductive in the baggy blue prison uniform. Bakura's eyes drank in the sight eagerly for a few minutes, before he too slunk away from his table and untouched food to fall in line with Marik.

Both the Pharaoh and the eldest Kaiba knew the two thieves were approaching before they had crossed the halfway point on their way to the table. Kaiba's head raised and glanced at them for half a second, perpetual scowl etched into his face, though somehow even darker and more unappealing now, before he returned to the book he held in his hands. The Pharaoh kept their gaze for much longer. He still looked just as kingly and stuck up as always, but there was definitely a sign of humility there now that Bakura could not remember ever having noticed before. Indeed, as they got closer to the table, the Pharaoh's normally overpowering presence seemed to lessen somehow, like he were mortified to be caught in such a place by his enemies. This could not have made Bakura happier. By the time he reached the table he was practically glowing, which was as happy as a 5,000-year-old irate spirit could get.

"Tomb Robber," the male greeted. Bakura pushed the food trays of both Kaiba and the Pharaoh to the side and hopped onto the table, disturbing Kaiba's reading in the processes, as was evident by his none-too-subtle grunt of displeasure. Bakura ignored this, and shoved the entire force of his attention upon his enemy. Marik too took a seat at the table, right next to the Pharaoh, and grinned just as fully as his partner in crime.

"Marik," Yami greeted as his attention shifted to the tomb keeper.

"Never would have expected you find you here, Pharaoh," Marik began with a sly little grin. "Kaiba wasn't that much of a surprise, but _you!_ Well, I figured you were much too important to fall to our status as petty criminals." Kaiba's only reaction to the insult was a further hardening of his cold blue eyes, but Yami again seemed to grow embarrassed by his being here.

"Yes, so why _are_ you here, Pharaoh? You didn't seem to keen on sharing that little detail last night, but maybe now that we're surrounded by friends now you'll be more eager, hmm? Marik and I would just _love_ to know," Bakura said, voice dripping sweet sarcasm, and Marik drew closer to the male in question with an eager little look.

"Yes, _do tell_," he said deviously, winking in Bakura's direction.

"Why don't the two of you take your own advice and enlighten us as to what you're doing here, hmm? Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you supposed to be some kind of master thief?" Kaiba said coldly, interrupting the heated glances the two talkative males were sharing with one another. Yami looked relieved by the change of subject, though the emotion was quickly covered by his stony façade. Bakura was very much put off by this sudden mentioning of his failure, and he leaned back to over to his own spot at the table and glared at Kaiba. The rich boy only put his book down softly and continued to look as smug and composed as ever.

"We were trying to steal a television set," Marik answered, helpful as ever. Or not. Bakura's eyes narrowed to tiny slits, but the blonde continued on, uncaring of the rage he was igniting in his partner. "The one we had before was too small. I mean, we'd be trying to watch porn, and it's really hard to get into the mood when you can't actually see anything, you know? So Bakura decided we should just go steal a new tv, one of those big flat screens with HD and a killer stereo setup, so we could really get the effect of it all, you know?—but apparently those things are a hell of a lot harder to steal now than they were before, what with all the security and everything so we wound up here."

The reactions to this unnecessary monologue were quite varied. The coals of Bakura's rage grew hotter and hotter until the point that were he a cartoon, steam would literally be pouring from his ears and nostrils. To Yami, this particular insight to the two male's love life was certainly not needed, and while he'd always thought something strange was going on between the two, he'd never in a million years wanted to be this sure of his correctness. Kaiba looked as infuriatingly blank as ever, though the self-satisfied grin had disappeared into a tight line of lip. And Marik, well Marik either was oblivious to all of this, or didn't think it was important to stop before the comments crossed the very thin line of "Do not need to know." When he _did_ finally finish, it was a bit of a race to see who would kill him first. Bakura won it.

"Marik," he said hotly, "what was it about that sentence that made you believe you actually needed to answer?" Marik shrugged and slunk further back against the plastic bench.

"He asked, and I figured why not tell? Can't be any more embarrassing than what the Pharaoh did to get here. I mean, you'd expect something like that from us," he answered. Then his eyes shined magnificently and he turned toward Yami, excitement palpable. "So what did you do anyways?"

The Pharaoh's face flushed slightly, barely noticeable, but Bakura zoomed in on the color like a vulture and felt some of his own anger evaporate. The male coughed slightly, looked over at Kaiba and was ignored, and then turned back to the eager eyes of Bakura and Marik.

"Well you see, Kaiba and I had… a minor disagreement on the street. It got rather involved, and some things were damaged in the process. Apparently the solution to this is for the both of us to do some jail time," Yami explained a bit hesitantly.

"Oooh, that _is_ good. So you and Kaiba got into a bitch fight in the middle of the street? You hit anyone? Or just break a few windows or something?" Marik questioned, once again sliding up close to the man on the bench next to him again. Yami didn't seem to know how to answer this inquiry, but it didn't matter much, because Kaiba had finally closed his book for good and was now bestowing upon the three of them the full force of his stony glare.

"You got your question answered. I think that's good enough, unless you want to keep pressing the issue…?" Kaiba questioned, trailing off meaningly.

"You don't scare us," Bakura scoffed. "I could beat your ass in a heartbeat, even with the scrawny body of my host. And even if by some chance you got a lucky break, the guards would break it up before any real damage was dealt."

"Oh I wasn't talking about fighting," Kaiba said, grinning eerily. "While I may be in this place with the lot of you, I still have access to all that a person of my stature has at their disposal. I could make a few phone calls easily and have you transferred or taken care of by another inmate. I'm sure with enough incentive the guards wouldn't even notice."

Bakura scowled at this. It wouldn't cost Kaiba anything at all to have him executed, and depending on how much the Pharaoh hated him, he wouldn't have any objections, even if it were his host that would truly suffer in the process. He hopped off the table with an angry look directed Kaiba's way.

"Don't think that you've won, rich boy. As you so correctly said before, I am a master thief. I can handle anything that is thrown my way. What happened to land me in this place was a little setback, but I'll be out before you know it," Bakura said with a small grin. He gave a mocking bow to the Pharaoh, then headed back to his own table, Marik trailing behind him.

The next day Bakura headed out of his cell to the cafeteria with the rest of the prisoners with a bounce in his step, not waiting for the Pharaoh to also leave their shared cell. Last night had been awkward at best, with the new information Yami had gleaned about just what went on between Bakura and Marik, and neither man was quite wiling to converse with their enemy, even if it did kill the boredom of spending several hours a day staring at a gray brick wall.

Bakura's good mood was obviously not brought on by the riveting conversation he'd shared with his cellmate, nor the interesting room décor. What had made him so happy was that he now knew exactly how he would be getting out of this place. So take that, Kaiba.

"You seem happy," Marik remarked when Bakura sat down across from him at what was now their table. The tray of bland looking slop was pushed to the side, once more ignored by Bakura is favor of the news he had to tell. Although Marik did look interested in whatever it was, he, unlike Bakura, was hungry from not eating anything yesterday, and so his lilac eyes looked down at the food in front of him, screwing up in disgust when he gathered enough courage to try the mess.

"You ever watch Prison Break on tv?" Bakura demanded, pleasantries aside. Marik's attention briefly flicked up to Bakura once more, then was again caught up in his food.

"No. Why would I have watched _that_? _I_ always watched Lost. It was much better," he said with another small bite of food and another shudder of disgust.

"That show sucked," Bakura scoffed.

"Nuh-uh! Season two was like, the coolest thing ever! All that stuff with the hatch!" Marik protested fiercely. "And besides," he remarked, coming back to himself and cooling down some, "Sawyer was _hot_." There wasn't really an argument Bakura could say to _that_. From the little he had seen of the confusing television show, Sawyer _was_ the most appealing character on it. But even so! That wasn't the point here! He couldn't allow himself to be pulled into a purposeless discussion about Sawyer's hotness.

"Look, Sawyer's hotness aside, that's not what I'm talking about. I need to know if you ever watched Prison Break, even just a little," Bakura said.

"I don't see why it matters," Marik said casually, twisting his plastic fork 'round in the goop. Bakura rolled his eyes and grabbed the other male's tray and tossed it somewhere behind him, tired of sharing Marik's attention with mystery… whatever the slop was. He ignored Marik's protest and grabbed his cheeks and forced their eyes to connect as he tried to forcibly push his idea into the blonde's head.

"Come on, Marik. You _cannot_ be that dense. _Think_. Prison Break. Where are we, Marik?" Bakura questioned. Marik's expressive eyes had widened when Bakura grabbed him forward harshly, but now they narrowed in thought. Bakura could almost see the wheels turning, slow as they were.

"A prison?" Marik announced, brow scrunched up adorably.

"Correct. And what do we need to do in this prison?"

"…Serve our time?"

"Wrong train of thought, Marik."

"Break… out…?"

"Correct," Bakura said, trying to hide how exasperated he was with this game. Luckily enough, they were approaching the final hurdle. Hopefully, Marik's brain wouldn't burn out before then. "Now why would a show called Prison Break be helpful to us?"

Marik rolled his eyes and successfully escaped Bakura's grasp on his face. He flicked a strand of platinum hair behind his shoulder and scoffed. "Oh come on Bakura, I'm not stupid. You think it'll help us bust out of here."

There were several things he could have said in response to that careless remark, but he decided to spare Marik's feelings and just agree with him. So he did so in the simplest of ways; he yanked Marik's face forward once more and pressed their lips together in a chaste kiss. As he pulled away he let his tongue linger on the other's juicy lips and swiped at them quickly, quite pleased with the dazed look he'd managed to produce in the other's eyes. Marik came back to himself slowly, and those wicked lips curled into a sultry grin that disappeared all too quickly as an inmate behind them coughed out the word "faggots."

Marik scowled and prepared to stand, but Bakura yanked him back to the table and with a careless look behind him, a black portal opened underneath the man's seat and yanked him deep into the depths of the Shadow Realm. The portal sealed itself back up before the man's companion had even noticed that his friend was gone. When he did take notice of the fact, his eyes widened and started looking around the cafeteria, like he expected that the male had just stood up and walked away somewhere.

"Why don't you just do that to everyone here and get us out that way?" Marik asked a bit quickly, irritated that he hadn't had a chance to take care of the male himself.

"I don't think the regular mortals are quite dim-witted enough to just accept that an entire prison up and vanished," Bakura remarked dryly. "Besides, I'm sure the Pharaoh would have something to say about that. He always does."

"And what about him then?" Marik asked with a gesture to the spot the inmate had been sitting at.

"I'm sure someone will come up with some explanation. Probably say he escaped or something. Now, I believe we were in the middle of something?" Bakura drawled, leaning in closer to the male across from him.

"Oh yeah. No, I don't think I've watched any Prison Break. Guess you'll have to think of something else," Marik shrugged. It took Bakura a few minutes to catch up with the sudden change in subject, and when he did he wasn't very happy with it.

"Well that's just great," he snarled. "Now what do we do?"

"Who knows?" Marik questioned, twisting the plastic fork in his grasp. He brought it down to the spot where his tray had been prior, and then got angry when he remembered that Bakura had thrown it away. And so their third day spent in prison was quite uneventful.

00000

Marik was dragging him over to Kaiba. Why he was doing so, Bakura did not know, but apparently something exciting had happened last night, and now Marik felt like Bakura needed to know about it. He swore that if the rich brat had dared touch what was his and only his, he was going to be dead before he could make the threatened phone call.

This second meeting with the rich eldest Kaiba took place in the yard of the prison estate. While the scenery was different, the situation itself was not. Kaiba was sitting on a mental bench, reading a different book than the one he'd been engaged in before, managing to look like a pompous ass even in pale blue prison uniform. Yami was situated beside him, a little bit closer than one would think he would be after having gotten into a severe enough fight with the man to land them both in prison. Bakura looked at the two critically, but he could not determine if there was something going on between them. While they were sitting close together, the only thing Kaiba paid attention to was his book, and the Pharaoh was just as oblivious of the other's presence as he sat observing the yard with a regal air, head held high. To Bakura, they both just looked like jerks.

Both males turned to acknowledge his and Marik's arrival with the same look of lofty indifference and Bakura felt his blood boil at the disrespect. With the way both were perched on the metal benches, they not only looked picturesque sitting up there even while surrounded by dirty inmates and prison guards with guns, but they were looking down at him too. With a growl Bakura marched all the way to the top of the damn steps and stood behind them, arms crossed and scowling.

"Oh great," Kaiba muttered quietly, angering Bakura all the more.

"Kaiba, I need you to tell Bakura the same thing you told me last night," Marik instructed. Kaiba scoffed at the demand, but he did put his book down and apparently come to some decision that he would waste his time on the likes of them. The Pharaoh too looked interested in the turn the conversation was taking, and he removed his eyes from the boring stretch of half-dead yard in front of them and also looked at Kaiba.

"Well, go on," Bakura sneered. "I have better things to do than sit here and wait around like the two of you seem so apt to do."

"Your little _boyfriend_ over there asked me about a certain television show last night. He wanted to know if I'd seen it," Kaiba said sarcastically, which only further increased Bakura's want to hit the man. But he held his fist back, for now he was just a bit invested in the conversation.

"And have you?" He questioned in annoyance.

"I have," Kaiba replied with a cold little smile, knowing that he had the upper hand here. And Bakura hated it.

At this point in the conversation, Yami thought it prudent to speak up. He had no idea what either male was on about, seeing as he and Bakura went though any and all lengths possible to ensure they never had to talk to each other in their little cell, or even acknowledge the other's existence there. Marik obviously knew what was going on, and Kaiba must have some knowledge as well. Yami was beginning to feel like the odd one out here, and as a centuries old king who'd always known exactly what his subjects were thinking, he did not take too kindly to being left in the proverbial dark.

"Just what tv show are we talking about here?" he asked curiously.

"It's none of your business, _Pharaoh_!" Bakura hissed at the exact same time that Kaiba replied with "Prison Break", making Yami miss completely both answers. Bakura glared angrily at the two males that were not Marik, and Kaiba continued to smirk his small, self-satisfied smirk, and went about answering Yami's question all over again.

"The thief wants to escape from here. He thinks if he had a little background knowledge, it would make things easier. He wants to know if I've seen the show Prison Break," Kaiba explained.

"That was one of Yuugi's favorite tv shows," Yami announced. This new knowledge made Bakura glare even harder than before, and he drew himself up to full height.

"So let me guess, _you've_ seen it too, huh?" he questioned.

"Well of course. I see everything that aibou does. You should know how the link between a spirit of the Sennen Items and its keeper works."

And Bakura did know how it worked, _obviously_. He had used the link between him and his host a great many times before, and always to his advantage. He just did not want to acknowledge that yet another person knew the secret to how he could escape this place, and that person was _not _he or Marik.

"But I don't see how that could possibly help here," Yami was continuing. "Wentworth Miller's character was only able to escape from Fox River because he had the prison's blueprints tattooed on his body. Unless one of us is hiding something like that under our shirts, I don't think the show would be of any help to us."

Inadvertently, Bakura's eyes trailed over to the form of Marik, who was sitting against the back of the metal bench he stood on and listening to the conversation carefully. The Egyptian caught the movement, and suddenly he was all action.

"I've got nothing hidden on me other than the key to the Pharaoh's cruddy memories, and there is no way in hell I'm getting anything else stuck on my body, even if it does help us get out of here," he proclaimed seriously, eyes narrowed and hard, as if daring anyone to suggest he do otherwise. The sudden venom in the blonde's voice brought everyone's attention to him, and for a second everyone was quiet as they tried to re-gather their thoughts. Even Kaiba looked a bit startled by the outburst, as his cool mask slipped for just a second to reveal a person under his stony depths.

"No one is suggesting that you do," Bakura said placidly, looking directly at Marik the entire time. He knew better than anyone here that Marik could get a bit out of shape when certain things were mentioned, among them being the scars on his back. He didn't need that happening now, not when his enemies held al the cards in their hands. He knew next to nothing about the show, and Marik wasn't any better. If things were going to work out the way he wanted, then he needed his partner-in-crime to be as clear-headed as ever.

"But you do have a point," he acknowledged, turning now to look again at Kaiba and Yami. "We need the blueprints to this place. Someway we've got to get them."

"It's not that simple, thief," Yami said, shaking his head. "You can get tattoos here, sure, but no one is going to be able to ink the blueprints of the building into your skin. And that type of work would take days to accomplish. It's impossible."

"Don't be so sure," Kaiba spoke up suddenly, right as Bakura was about to argue with the Pharaoh some more. Stupid goody goody thought he knew everything just because his host watched too much tv…

"You forget, I am the CEO of Kaiba Corp. I have more power in the palms of my hands then any of you could ever imagine. None of us here need to get the blueprints tattooed into our skin. I'll just pull a few strings and get Michael Scofield himself to come here," Kaiba announced with a certain maniacal gleam in his eyes.

"Oh! Oh!" Marik was the first to respond to Kaiba's outrageous assertion, and he seemed far more eager now than he had been all day. He was more or less bouncing up in his seat, and his violet eyes sparkled with excitement. "Can you get John Locke from Lost to come too? I bet he'd be _boss_ at breaking out of prison!"

00000

However crazy the idea of it was, Kaiba was true to his word. He possessed every bit as much power as he said he did. For on the next day all four males were called from their cells to meet with visitors. And standing in the visitor cells were none other than Michael Scofield and John Locke. Bakura, having been in the possession of a body that more often than not was found reading in favor of watching television, really had no idea who either of these two were, and was nowhere near as impressed to see them standing before him. Marik and the Pharaoh on the other hand, were thrilled.

Kaiba sat in his chair with a self-satisfied smirk on his face as he watched the two males fawn over the actors, while Bakura stood nearby, wondering how exactly things were going to go from this point on. And how in the hell had this entire escape operation gone from involving only himself and Marik to now including the rich kid and the Pharaoh?

After both Yami and Marik had gotten their crazy fan-obsessions out of the way and came back with autographs from both actors, Kaiba set about doing what he did best: getting the two to do what he wanted.

"It's not going to be easy," Scofield said after a moment's deliberation. His voice had a soft, smooth tone to it, that curiously enough made everything he said sound weighty and like it had been delivered after some huge revelation had been delivered.

"I know that," Kaiba said simply. "But you can do it, can't you?" His fingers were steepled under his chin, and his blue eyes were cold and steely. He had entered his business mode, and the entire small little space had been transformed into his temporary office. Even Bakura had to take a step back and acknowledge that this was Kaiba's territory here.

"Well if he can't, I'll be able to," Locke cut in, bringing his chair closer to the glass that separated the two men. He sounded strong and sure of himself, just like a young man full of confidence, but his voice also carried a sort of wisdom to it that one would expect an older man to have gained over the years. Scofield's eyes moved over to the older man's form, but he held his tongue.

"I don't care who gets it done, or how. All I want is for myself and my… associates… to be out of here before the end of the week," Kaiba said.

"But that only gives us four days," Locke said in surprise. Kaiba smiled maliciously.

"Well then you had both better get a move on, hadn't you? I called the two of you because you are the best suited to this task. And if you succeed, it _will_ be worth your efforts." Scofield stood from his chair.

"It looks like I'll have a lot of planning to do," he said with a wry little smile. "I'll be back soon." And then he left. Locke followed soon after him, and that left the four inmates together in the room with only themselves and the guards that had been brought to make sure they did not try anything strange. Kaiba remained seated while the others stood, and Bakura was very displeased to see that little smile still dancing on his lips.

"Oh shut up," he said, and let the guard accompany him back to his cell.

00000

Bakura didn't know how it happened, but the next day, both Locke and Scofield were in prison with them. The two had been given a cell together in the west wing, and while it was on the other side of the prison from which the four were located, it was good luck that they'd been housed together. Their next meeting was out in the yard, and both actors had already thought of a few good ideas on how to bust out.

"All right," Scofield said in a quiet conspirator's whisper. The quiet of his voice forced the group of men to gather closer to the one in the center, but all six kept their eyes of something besides the male. Kaiba sat with his book opened on his lap, pretending to read though the pages, while Locke stood off to the side and fiddled with a section of his blue uniform. The Pharaoh sat on the metal stands on the other side of Scofield, looking as regal as ever, and Bakura and Marik stood in front of the stands, glaring at anyone who passed by, guards included.

"The point of escape is going to be in your cell," Scofield say, blue-green eyes flicking to Yami, and then Bakura, who both gave an imperceptible nod. "The two of you will have to work in shifts to unscrew the toilet and widen the hole there so we can all get out. Locke will give you the tools you need for this." Locke took a step forward them and handed a small metal object to both males. Bakura snorted as he recognized the object instantly as a small knife. If it was a knife they needed, he could have just gotten one of those himself; it wasn't like he didn't have several already stashed in his cell, just in case the Pharaoh got too full of himself.

"Once the hole is widened, another hole will have to be drilled to get us where we need to be inside the walls of the prison. Leave that to Kaiba. He knows what he needs to do. Marik, you'll just have to make sure no one starts questioning where he is." The blonde nodded at the description of his job, but seemed a bit put off by it all the same. Everyone else got to do something so much more interesting, but all he was supposed to do was keep lookout. That didn't sound any fun.

"Locke and I will work on where to go from there. We'll be escaping from the roof, so the two of us will make sure that everything goes smoothly and secure our escape route. If everything goes as planned, we should be out in three days," Scofield finished with a small little grin. Bakura was mortified to find that it was the same grin as the one Kaiba sometimes chose to bestow them with, when he wasn't trying to be more emotionless than a whitewashed wall. Damn those pretty boys and their brains, always thinking of themselves as supreme to everyone else.

With their little meeting over, the males separated, neither one really wanting to be in the presence of the others, but there only from necessity. They remained separated until it was time for them all to go back to their cells, and once there they began their plan.

"We're going to need to do something so the guards won't see us working on the wall in here," Yami murmured quietly when he and Bakura had returned to their respective cell.

"If you think I'm putting up a sheet and making everyone in this place think we're fucking just for the sake of getting out of here, then you're even crazier than I always thought you were," Bakura snorted, lying on his bed and twirling the small silver knife in his hands. It was tiny but sharp and deadly and in nice condition, though he could tell from some wear on the handle that it was not new. Locke was the type to keep his knives very nice cleaned, Bakura noted. It seemed a shame to have to ruin the small piece of art now.

"I'm not very keen on the idea either, tomb robber," Yami said wearily, hoping that for once in their extended lives, the two could not get into a fight. They needed to work together now more than ever. Once this entire thing was over they could go back to hating each other.

"Then think of something else," Bakura said, shooting down the very notion of the two of them ever doing something so ludicrous such as cooperating together.

"Well unless _you_ can think of something better, I don't think we have a choice," Yami snapped. Bakura smirked and pocketed the knife, them jumped down from his bed and stood tall in front of the Pharaoh's scowl.

"As a matter of fact, I can. We use shadow magic," he announced. Yami scoffed at the idea and shook his head.

"We can't do that. The Puzzle and Ring are too far away for use to be able to sustain any amount of magic for a long period of time."

"Maybe for _you_," Bakura said, "but _I_ can handle it just fine. Just the other day I sent someone to the Shadow Realm." Yami's purple eyes widened with recognition; no doubt he had felt the use of the magic the moment Bakura had done it. However, before he was able to open his mouth and reprimand Bakura for the use of said magic, the atmosphere surrounding the two began to darken and turn cold. It did not darken to the deep color of the Shadow Realm, but the power of it was enough to tint the color of the cell, like looking at the world through magenta-tinged lenses.

"There," Bakura said with a note of triumph and fatigue laced in his voice. He had not sent them to the Shadow Realm exactly, but they would be able to work without worrying about any guards or other inmates noticing what they were doing. However, annoying as the Pharaoh was, he was right about the strain it placed on his body using so much magic without the Ring in his possession. He wasn't weak enough that he couldn't do it, but it didn't feel that good when he did.

"Y-you can't just use magic like that! Someone will notice!" the Pharaoh yelled.

"Oh shut up; no one's going to notice. Just get your ass down by that toilet and start getting the thing out of the wall. I'll make sure the spell stands up," Bakura said. Yami glared but surprisingly enough did as he was told and bent down to the toilet, his own knife from Locke in hand. The small blade fit without a problem into the slit of the screws bolting the toilet to the concrete floor, and Yami hastened in taking them all out.

Bakura himself sat and watched the process; glad he didn't have to do it himself. He was actually struggling a bit to keep the cell separate from the rest of the prison, and perspiration had broken out on his brow. Powerful as he was, he didn't think he would have been able to concentrate on both unscrewing the toilet and keeping up the barrier. Being this far away from the Ring was leeching his power. If things kept up this way, soon he wouldn't even be able to remain in possession of Ryou's body.

But as it were, Yami was able to remove the toilet from the wall with only a few scraps on his fingertips, and then went to work on widening the hole. It was slow work using the small knife to chisel away at the concrete, and tiny rocks of it broke off and soon began to form a small pile on the floor of their cell. When Yami proclaimed the tunnel wide enough, three hours had passed by and a sizeable pile rested on the ground.

"We need to get rid of that," Bakura pointed out.

"I know that," Yami said crossly.

"Well then just shove it down the hole or something!" Bakura snapped. Maintaining the barrier was really starting to weigh on him now, and he didn't feel like sitting here and expanding his energy while the Pharaoh fucked around and tried to come up with some plan of action.

"We can't do that. I don't knew where this tunnel leads to, and someone may hear the rocks falling or see them and know something's wrong. We can't risk being caught," the man argued.

"Then just hide it somewhere until we can figure out what to do with it! I'm not keeping this thing up any more!" Yami scowled but again did as he was told, not because he feared the thief's reaction, but because he did not want to be caught because his cellmate could not keep his magic sustained. So he quickly shoved the pile under the bed, not a moment too soon, for a few seconds after the magenta coloring began to fade and everything returned to normal. They were back in the same realm as the rest of the prison.

With the first part of the plan finished and out of the way, next up was Kaiba. Apparently they had only a tiny tiny mechanical drill to work with, and the job required precision and great patience, hence Kaiba's involvement and no one else's. They were only able to work on it in the small amount of time when prisoners were allowed out of their cell and able to travel to another's. Kaiba apparently had no qualms about hanging a sheet up whenever he went in the cell to work, and so caring much more about his reputation than the rich boy apparently did, Bakura left during these times and headed over to where Marik's cell.

The blonde was very unhappy with his role in the scheme of things. To him, he seemed to have been given the short stick. Everyone else got to help participate in the escape but for him. He was told to sit here and tell anyone that asked that Kaiba was out fucking the Pharaoh and wanted some alone time. He was currently sitting on his bed and sulking, which was how Bakura found him when he showed up.

"Something crawl up your ass?" the thief asked from the doorway. Marik had opened his mouth to give the same reply about Kaiba's whereabouts that he'd been giving since the man left nearly an hour ago, but stopped mid-sentence when he realized this voice was familiar, and snapped out of his thoughts to see Bakura leaning against the wall, grinning at him fiendishly.

"Shut up, fluffy," he growled, and sulked even more. Even if Bakura wasn't doing anything, he still wasn't tied up and forced to remain in his cell for no good reason.

"Well if you're going to be so inhospitable, I'll just take my leave," Bakura said, and turned to go, knowing full well that Marik would stop him before he did. And that was exactly what happened.

"Just sit down," the blonde said in mock-irritancy. While he was still pissed that Bakura got to play more of a part in the escape than he did, sitting around alone didn't do anything to help him out. Having Bakura here with him though, now _that_ could at least distract him from his pathetic job. And from the look in Bakura's eyes, distraction was exactly what he'd had in mind.

"When was the last time we got some time alone?" he drawled as he complied with Marik's order and joined him on the bed.

"Since before we got arrested. So a week ago. That was when we decided to get that damned big screen tv," Marik answered.

"Well, I think it's time to change that," Bakura replied with a cheeky grin as he scooted closer to the other male. "You and I have been spending way too much time with Kaiba and the Pharaoh for it to be healthy for either of us. So, what say we hang a sheet up and have some fun? There must be an extra one around here somewhere."

Bakura was closer now, so close he was almost on top of Marik. Were he to move an inch, he would be straddling the boy, pushing him down into the hard prison cot. Marik could feel his hot breath pricking at his skin, making him feel hot as well. He was very tempted, very very tempted, but there was no fun in just going along with it like that.

"Oh, I have so missed your subtle come ons. I don't think you could have been any more blunt if you'd just said 'let's fuck.'" Marik said with a roll of his eyes and pushed the other away. But Bakura would not be persuaded that easily, and in a heartbeat he _was_ on top of Marik, pining him to the bed. His long silver hair dripped sensuously over an elbow, and his normally harsh eyes seemed to melt and drip right down onto Marik, igniting his own lust even more.

"Oh come on, you haven't ever had a prison fantasy?"

"Hmm, what if I say I have?" Marik asked, eyes flashing brightly as he brought his knee up. Bakura was situated more on his legs than his actual body, and that put him in the perfect position for Marik to maneuver that knee in between his legs and press against the hardness he knew would be there, even concealed by the baggy blue uniform as it was. Bakura ground against him eagerly, and his breath came out hotter and hotter against Marik's face.

"Well then… what would it be?" he questioned, managing to still keep his voice reasonably still even as his face flushed the gyrations of his hips became wilder and more rapid.

Marik used his forearms to push himself up off the bed and lean in close to Bakura. He craned his neck and bit at the other's ear through his veil of hair, resulting in a nice shudder of pleasure that he could feel even through his own prone body.

"Well first I want you to tie me up," he whispered.

Marik had no sooner said the words than it was done. Bakura stripped off his shirt and somehow managed to wrap the fabric around Marik's wrists and one of the metal poles of the bed that helped support the one above it. The Egyptian tested his bonds and found that he could not break free of them.

"Well I like where this is going so far. Anything else?" Bakura purred from above him.

"Yeah," Marik said, " Hang the damn sheet up already."

Bakura was quick about that too, and in only a few moments Marik was being suffocated by the warmth of a familiar body again. He strained against his bonds to press himself up against Bakura further, and feel more of that delicious friction, but the silver haired male held himself away. Marik growled and thrust his hips upward, indicating silently that that was where he wanted Bakura to be. The male above him smirked and slid down the length of his body slowly, close enough to heat up Marik's trembling flesh, but never enough to really give him the satisfaction he was seeking.

"Now I want you to blow me," he said, voice husky. He hadn't thought that Bakura had pushed him that far already, but apparently yes, he had. Nearly a week without any had produced more of an effect in him than he'd thought it had. His cock throbbed in the confines of his uniform, waiting to be released and to be given release.

Bakura licked his lips, and the sight of that bright red tongue made Marik want it on him all the more. He thrust again, and this time instead of hitting air his length slid nicely against Bakura's backside, making neither of them able to quite stifle a surprised gasp. But then the softness against him was gone as Bakura slid further down, and Marik couldn't really find it in him to care because in seconds Bakura had unfastened his pants and sealed his mouth completely over the entirety of Marik's cock.

He thrust instinctually forward, wanting to go deeper even though he was already as deep as he could get. Bakura swallowed and tightened his throat for a blissful second, and then he was pulling away, exposing Marik's dripping length to the cold of the room. Then he was on it again, attacking the head with his tongue, swirling around it over and over again and doing things to Marik that he couldn't even begin to describe.

He tugged at his bonds fervently, wanting nothing more than to free himself and grab Bakura's locks, shove him down and make him take all of him into his mouth. He growled in frustration when he could not, and arched his back desperately, eager to make Bakura take more of him. The other male did not. He removed his lips altogether, until only his tongue was on Marik, trailing up and down, running over the network of veins that throbbed in agony.

Not able to take much more of the torture, Marik finally forced Bakura to give him what he wanted. He tightened his thighs and forced Bakura down in between his legs. He felt the silkiness of the male's lips rub up and down his length, and then a tongue lazily joined in the movements until finally it reached the top, and he was once again deep inside Bakura, deep inside the man's suffocating throat and going deeper and deeper. His legs trembled with the release he knew was coming and loosened their hold, but remained propped up on Bakura's shoulders as he bobbed his head up and down.

Marik's thighs tightened one last time as Bakura pushed him over the edge, and with a startled, breathy gasp he came deep inside the male's throat. One last swallow milked the rest of his seed from him, and then he was released from his hot prison and his back fell against the bed and his breathing quieted down.

"There anything more to that fantasy of yours?" Bakura questioned as he leaned over Marik's exhausted form to untie his wrists. His own heated length pressed against Marik's stomach, still unfulfilled. Marik smirked lazily, because there was still a lot more to that fantasy of his, but it wasn't meant to be.

"I sure hope not," a snide voice remarked from the other side of the white sheet. Marik bolted up from the bed with a speed he had not possessed earlier and shoved himself back inside his pants and fastened them hastily. He then pulled the sheet down to reveal none other than Seto Kaiba, who seemed to be stuck somewhere between deciding on a look of disgust, or wry amusement. He took in the sight of Bakura's still-naked chest and decided on disgust.

"Hope I'm not interrupting," he said coldly.

"Well I doubt you'd leave even if you were," Bakura snorted.

"Why should I, when it's my room you're screwing in?" Kaiba shot back with an icy look. "And speaking of rooms, you can get out of this one now."

Bakura sneered and yanked his shirt on over his head, then stood up from the bed and marched over to Marik. He yanked the male close to his side and drew him into a passionate kiss, then withdrew just as quickly before either of the other two occupants had a chance to recover from it.

"You owe me," he said with a malicious grin, and then left with another angry glare at Kaiba. To his credit, the rich teen was completely unaffected by it. He merely picked up another book he had somehow managed to obtain and headed to the beds. He stopped for a second and looked at Marik, who was still standing awkwardly at the door of the cell.

"You better have not done that on _my_ bed."

00000

The next day during lunch Bakura again found himself sitting at the table with Marik. Overall, the blonde seemed to be in a better mood after yesterday. He was now even eating the food this place served without complaint, and had not once sulked at not getting a bigger part in the escape mission.

Bakura had enjoyed his encounter with the other yesterday as well, but now he was again wondering when in the hell they would get out of here. Kaiba said that he only needed today to finish drilling the hole in the wall, and after that it would be up to Scofield and Locke. Bakura had seen the two talking to Kaiba and the Pharaoh mostly, but he had no idea what their grand plan of escape was.

"If you don't ever eat anything you're going to make yourself get sick, you know," Marik spoke up from the other wide of the table, interrupting his musings. Bakura looked up at him, then at the gray, vacuous liquid-like slop hanging off his spoon.

"I don't think so," he said. "I'll be fine without it. My body doesn't need much nutrition."

"You might not, but your host does," Marik pointed out as he pointed the spoon towards his mouth.

"Even I'm not so cruel as to make Ryou eat _that_," Bakura said. Marik shrugged and took another bite, as if to say that it wasn't that bad, once you got passed the gag reflex. Bakura merely rolled his eyes.

"I'll eat when we get out of here. When is that supposed to happen anyways?"

"Hell if I know. I'm only in the same cell as the rich bastard, but he doesn't tell me anything," Marik said. "It was _our_ idea too. You'd think we'd be told these things. All I know is that Kaiba needs to finish whatever he's doing, and from there it's up to Locke and Scofield." Bakura hummed in thought, but really added nothing more to the conversation. Having never watched Prison Break or Lost, he couldn't even begin to think of how those two were going to get the six of them out.

"What are we going to do when we get out?" Marik asked suddenly. "I mean, we've been here so long it's like I don't even know what to do with myself anymore."

"Marik, we've been here for eight days. I hardly think life has changed all that much on the outside."

"It might have!" Marik protested loudly. Bakura just shook his head and decided not to argue. Sure he'd been alive for thousands of years and knew better than anyone how things changed, but try telling that to Marik.

"Well I guess we'll find out when Kaiba finally gets done with his part of the job," he said instead. Which hopefully, would be soon. After lunch the prisoners would be sent back into their cells for a few hours, and after that the cells would again be open for Kaiba to do whatever it was he still needed to do. If Scofield and Locke had finished their part in the escape, whatever that was, the group could be out of here by tonight.

After lunch the two headed back to their respective cells, where Bakura began his newly favorite pastime of staring at the solid gray wall of his cell, and steadfastly ignoring his cellmate. This went on between both parties, until the cell doors were opened and Kaiba made his way to their cell. Bakura again left and headed to Marik's, but not knowing how long it would take the rich teen to finish up what needed to be done with the wall, no repeat of yesterday was made.

It was just as well, because Kaiba finished quickly and returned to his cell with Yami in tow. Together the two informed the other two that it had been finished.

"So now we just need to talk to Locke and Scofield, right?" Marik questioned.

"We'll have to wait until tomorrow. They're both in the west wing, and after this we don't get another opportunity to leave our cells again until then," Kaiba said.

"And do you have any idea of how exactly we'll be getting out of here," Bakura questioned dryly, bringing the other's attention towards him. He picked himself up from where he'd been leaning against the bed, and walked straight up to Kaiba. "You're the one who's talked to them most recently. If anyone would know, it's you."

"And why should I tell you?" Kaiba questioned with an ugly sneer. Bakura only smiled.

"Don't tell us then. I just thought it would be prudent for everyone to be in on the plan, so that when it's put into action things won't mess up."

"You wouldn't."

"I wouldn't," Bakura agreed, "but mistakes happen. They're even more likely to occur when people don't know what's going on."

"Tomb Robber—" Yami started, but Kaiba cut him off with the raising of his hand.

"It's fine," he said. "They should know what's happening. We wouldn't want anything bad to happen." He sneered at Bakura, but unlike with the Pharaoh, Bakura was not so easily stopped. If anything, he was made all the more eager to learn. Beside him, Marik's inquisitive eyes were darting back and forth between the two opposite him, trying to figure out what was going on between them.

"Scofiled and Locke have been securing our exit. We'll leave through the hole in your cell, and from that point on climb into the walls from my hole. From there on, we'll keep going until we meet up with the actors. They've been working on things from their own side. Locke brought with him some various ingredients to create a solvent that eats through the metal pipes of the ventilation system. We're going to use the vents to reach the roof. And once we get there, Locke has arranged for a helicopter to pick us up," Kaiba explained smugly. Bakura had to admit, it was certainly flashy enough to work. Although that didn't mean he cared one bit for Kaiba's attitude. After all, the brat had no reason to get all haughty. Bakura was the one who'd thought of the plan. Kaiba had only been able to bring the one's able to put it into action here because of his money. Without Bakura, he'd still be sitting in jail and rotting, money and fame included.

"Well tell them to hurry up and get a move on it!" Marik snapped from the side. "I haven't had a good shower all week! A man can't wash himself without having to worry about who's behind him, or if the soap is slipping. And I think I found a split end yesterday!"

And that sort of killed the rest of the conversation for the day.

00000

The plan was as follows: four of the men would sneak out of their cells and make their way in the dead of night to the one Bakura shared with the Pharaoh. There they would all enter the cell and disappear down the hole in the wall, and from their follow the path Locke and Scofield had mapped out. Once they reached the roof, the helicopter would be waiting to take them away. If all went as planned, then they would be in the air by the time the guards made their rounds and noticed that the six of them were gone.

The doors cells operated on an electrical system, with a manual one as backup in case the power went out, but this way not a problem. Bakura, being the master thief that he was, was able to successfully dismantle the manual lock on the very first day he'd been put in the joint, before he'd even dreamed of escaping. Marik had done the same with his, and Locke had apparently picked up enough skills in his acting career to know how to do the same. As for the electrical ones, well, it helped having two magic users trapped in the same room together. Once the six were completely sure of the time schedule for their plan, and when everything would happen, Bakura and Yami agreed to call upon the powers of their items—briefly—to disengage the electricity for a few seconds; long enough for them to get out. After that, it was smooth sailing.

And so, with everything figured out and ready, the only thing left to do was escape.

The rest of the day went by in an overwrought silence stretched thin. No man talked to his cellmate, save for Locke and Scofield, on whose shoulders the entire escape mission was resting. None of them would admit that they were worried of course, but even Bakura, who had been running away from guards and escaping out of sticky situations his entire life, was just a tiny bit apprehensive about what the night would bring.

Even though the day seemed to stretch on forever, night fell soon enough, and after a few more hours of waiting, it was time to begin their plan.

"You ready for this, Pharaoh?" Bakura questioned to the man across from him. The male rolled his eyes, but he did not fall prey to Bakura's game and start an argument. Things had to be precise here. There was no time for anything else, or everything would fail. So instead, he only agreed, and then the two of them closed their eyes and set to work.

Normally, it would not take up a lot of energy to cause a small blackout over the entire prison for only a few seconds, but the minute Bakura started making the magic flow, it felt harder than ever to accomplish what he wanted to do. Sweat immediately broke out all over his body, and he struggled to keep himself standing upright. Beside him, Bakura heard the Pharaoh's breathing increase, and knew that he was also feeling the effects of trying to use shadow magic so far away from the Sennen Items.

At first, neither male could build up enough magic to do what he wanted. But after a few moments of struggling, the lights flickered pathetically, and then went completely off. The two kept them that way for one… two… three… four… ten seconds. And once those ten seconds passed, both males stopped the flow of magic and collapsed on the Pharaoh's bed, breathing heavily.

Bakura's eyes swiveled over to the Pharaoh, who was still trying to catch his breath.

"Oh, come on now Pharaoh…" he teased, "surely for you… using a little bit of magic can't be _that_ hard, can it…?" Yami decided to save his breath on more important things than fighting back with the spirit. He too was worn out after exerting only that small amount of power, even if he tried to appear as if he weren't.

"We had better get ready. They'll be coming any minute now," Yami said instead. But even though both males knew this was true, neither could find it in himself to stand up from the bed. The last time Bakura could remember feeling this exhausted was five thousand years ago, after escaping from the Pharaoh's men. As for the Pharaoh himself, he couldn't _ever_ remember feeling this way. Needless to say, when Marik, Kaiba, Locke, and Scofield reached the cell, they found the two still lying there on the bed, breathing heavily, faces just a tad bit flushed from their activity. The sight instantly convinced everyone of the wrong idea. Especially Marik.

"_How dare you!_" he screeched, much louder than was safe, considering they were trying to escape. "You better open this door _right now_ so I can kick your ass! And with the _Pharaoh_ of all people!"

It was the blonde's furious wrath that got both men moving again, and hastily jumping off the bed where they'd collapsed, as both simultaneously realized that their position _did_ look a bit compromising.

"It's not what it looks like—!"

"We didn't actually do anything—!"

"We just had to rest—"

"All right, that's enough I think!" The loud and imposing voice belonged to Locke, who instantly gained the attention of the other five men. When he saw this, the older man's face softened a bit into the smile he always wore. "We can argue about what did not didn't happen once we're out of here. Until then, we need to work together. Now, if you two could open up the door, we're burning time here."

Bakura didn't really want to try using magic again, and by the face Yami was making, he didn't seem too keen on the idea either, but everyone was already here, and the sooner they could get out of the prison and into the walls, the sooner they could get to the Sennen Items and replenish their wavering powers. So both stood again in the middle of the room and concentrated on pulling to their stationary bodies the energies that were being emitted from the Ring and Puzzle. It was even harder to do this time around, and took much longer, but both were able to accomplish it in the end, and the power died for about four seconds before the two couldn't hold on anymore and once again fell down to the bed.

Four seconds was enough though, and the other half of the escape plan was able to enter the cell. Scofield and Locke stayed back, observing the other four, as both were wont to do. Marik rushed over to Bakura's side to help him, for the moment all anger forgotten, but that was expected, really. The surprising part was that the impervious, untouchable billionaire Seto Kaiba also went to help out. He moved to Yami's side and took a hold of a skinny arm to help him up.

"Bakura! You okay? What happened?" Marik questioned a bit urgently as he helped the skinny teen stand. Bakura put a hand up to his head to stop the room from spinning. Sadly, it didn't help much.

"I need the Ring. I can't keep using shadow magic with it so far away," he explained shortly.

"We'll get it soon," Marik said. "We just need to keep moving. We're almost out of here."

"You sound surprisingly concerned. That mean you don't think I was fooling around with the Pharaoh anymore?" Bakura teased. Marik huffed and blew a stray piece of blonde hair out of his eyes, all while suspiciously not looking at Bakura himself.

"Well it looked very bad from where I was!"

"You really think I'd sink that low? I'm insulted," Bakura said in mock-hurt. Marik rolled his eyes and with a pointed smirk looked over in Yami's direction.

"Well you haven't sunk, but it looks like someone has," he grinned. Kaiba and Yami might have entered this place as enemies, but it didn't seem that way now. While it was true that the elder Kaiba was only helping his rival get to his feet again, when it was Kaiba doing the helping, a simple gesture of kindness turned into something else completely. Kaiba didn't _do_ kindness. Bakura didn't even know the guy and even he was aware of this. Something was totally going on between the two of them. And damned if he wasn't going to figure out exactly what it was when he busted out.

"Are the two of you going to keep gawking, or are we able to finally continue on now?" Kaiba's icy voice cut in through both teens' musings on the situation. His hand was still on Yami's arm in that surprising and unexpected show of tenderness, but his voice and eyes both promised pain if another comment was made on the subject.

"He's right," Scofield said, choosing the perfect moment to reenter the conversation before it veered off in yet another unplanned direction. "We're wasting time here. We need to get going." It was childish, but Bakura stuck his tongue out at the back of the actor's shaved head. He'd wanted to keep on enjoying himself.

But Scofield really was serious when he said that they were wasting time. As of right now, they were just slightly off schedule, but even that tiny amount could come at a big price later on. They had to get out as quickly as they could, before the guards noticed that the six of them were not in their cells. If they caught on to the fact that they weren't, the alarm would sound and make escape a hell of a lot harder than it already would be. So they had to get a move on now.

They moved the toilet aside as quietly as they could, and then one by one, with Scofield in the lead because he knew where he was going and Locke in the back to make sure they all stayed together, they entered into the prison walls. They followed the pipes from the toilet down to the spot where Kaiba had been drilling. There was a small hole there, not much bigger than the one behind the toilet. They all squeezed through it in the same manner as they had the first hole, and then continued on with Scofiled constantly taking turns here and there. He was leading them all the way to the west wing of the prison, where he and Locke had been planning the rest of the escape. From there they would reach the roof.

"When are we getting my Ring back?" Bakura asked. They had all been told to be quiet when inside the walls, but Bakura honestly couldn't picture anyone being up to hear him. And he could feel that they were moving farther and farther away from the Sennen Ring, and that did not make the state of exhaustion he was in any easier on him.

"Yes, shouldn't we make sure to get the Puzzle and Ring back first?" Yami asked from behind Bakura. They did not stop moving, but there was a peculiar feeling around Scofiled that Bakura did not like one bit. He was positioned directly behind the actor and could pick it up most easily. That feeling told him he wasn't going to be very happy about whatever it was Scofield had to say here.

"I wasn't told anything about picking up any possessions along the way," he said finally.

"What do you mean, you weren't told?" Bakura demanded, getting a bit loud. Yami tapped him in warning, but he just growled at the man.

"I mean exactly that," Scofield answered. "My job description was to get the four of you out. No one ever said anything about making any stops on the way."

"Kaiba!" Bakura growled. He tried turning around in the narrow passageway to really give the man a piece of his mind, but he could hardly stand as it was, and maneuvering his body around was too much of a hassle.

"We don't have time to worry about your silly necklaces. We need to get out of here first. I'll get them back once we're gone," Kaiba explained shortly. Bakura prepared himself to start yelling, but it turned out that he didn't need to. Yami took care of that himself.

"Kaiba… Bakura and I need my Puzzle and his Ring back. Without them, we won't be able to remain here. The further we get from them the less energy we have to keep going on," he explained rather patiently.

"Well there's nothing we can do about that now. We don't have time to go back and get them," Kaiba insisted.

"Did you _not_ just hear what he said? You really want that short twerp to come back into the picture?" Bakura said, completely ignoring the protest Yami made at hearing his aibou be insulted.

"We don't have time for any of this! Can't the two of you see _that_?" Kaiba replied irritably.

"Look! How about I go and get the Ring and Puzzle?" Marik said from near the end of the line. All three in the argument instinctually tried turning to look at the blonde, but then remembered there wasn't enough room for the completion of that action.

"Any objections?" he asked.

"How will you be able to get back?" Kaiba asked.

"I'll go with him," Locke said from the very end of the line. "I know the blueprints to this place just as well as Michael. I'll head out with Marik here and get whatever it is you two need, and come right back. Then we can all get out of here."

"Just be quick about it," Scofield said from the front of the line. "It you're not here when the helicopter leaves, we'll have to leave without you."

"You just worry about getting to it first," Locke replied back. The steady fall of his footsteps and Marik's slowed for a second, and then began to diminish in sound. They were leaving.

"Marik!" Bakura called out.

"Yeah?"

Bakura hesitated for a moment. He wished more than ever that he could turn around in this damn narrow passage and actually see Marik, but at the same time he didn't want to give Kaiba and the Pharaoh any ammo, not after he'd been teasing them both. In the end he rolled his eyes and decided he didn't care. Damn kid, making him turn soft.

"Make sure you don't get yourself caught! You had better be on that plane out of here," he said.

"Thanks for the concern, Bakura." He could hear the smile in Marik's voice, and was so used to hearing that voice and seeing that face that he could picture it perfectly now without even having to turn around. His face flushed and he just scoffed. He heard Marik chuckle sensuously, and then he was moving away again, and the rest of them were continuing forward.

With the matter of the Sennen Items cleared up, all that was left was for them to actually get out of here. Scofield led them forward efficiently and assuredly. There were actually a lot more turns and hidden passages then Bakura had figured there would be, but Scofield never once seemed to get lost. He knew exactly where he was going, which could only be a good thing, but now Bakura was feeling just a tiny—tiiinnnyyy!— bit concerned about Marik and Locke. Sure Locke _said_ he knew exactly where he was going, but that didn't mean he wouldn't get lost. All Bakura knew was that a certain old man was going to pay if Marik wound up getting stuck in here because his guide didn't know where he was going and pissed the escape.

"We're directly under the roof now," Scofield announced, disrupting the silence. Bakura came back to the real world with a bit of a shock—he hadn't noticed they'd been moving as much as they had, so caught up in his thoughts was he.

Scofield led them now to a large metal pipe. Bakura didn't think anything was up with it until he was led around the pipe and saw that the back part of it had been completely melted away—probably by whatever solvent it was Locke had used. The opening they were in right now was a bit less narrow that the passageways between walls, but it was still pretty cramped, so only two people could enter at once, while the others waited outside. Scofield climbed into the pipe first and told him they were going up. Once he was all the way up Bakura stepped forward and also climbed up.

When he got out of the pipe, he discovered the small ragtag group of escapees was now in what looked like a small broom closet. Plastic bags hung off wooden pegs, and several janitor's outfits, not unlike the ones they wore now in their bland, solid blue color, rested on wire hangers. Mops and dusty brooms stood upright in corners like silent accomplices to their crimes. The floor and walls creaked in protest, trying to inform some wandering guard that someone was here who should not be.

The moment he got his bearings, whether it was a result of the old, stuffy air in the closet, or the trip around the prison and the climb up the piping, Bakura felt more exhausted than he'd ever known his body to feel. His vision swayed in front of his eyes, and though he struggled to keep on his feet instead of pass out like some woman, he wound up falling all the same.

"Tomb Robber! What's going on?" The face of the Pharaoh swam up in front of his blurry vision. The colors of his hair were running into those of his face, like some child's awful watercolor painting that hadn't been put out to dry for long enough. Though he could barely see the man correctly, Bakura still waved off the hand he'd offered to help him up and tried to stand himself. Bad idea. The world tipped alarmingly to the side, and in an instant Bakura was grounded again.

"What's going on?" Scofield. That was Scofield.

"I don't know. He just collapsed all of a sudden."

"Bakura, what's wrong?"

"Tired," he replied, disgusted that he could only find it in himself to say that one word. But it seemed so right. Right now, "tired" was the only thing going through his mind. His body felt suddenly like a thousand pound weight that he'd been dragging forward for a mile at least. "Tired" summed him up completely.

"He needs the Sennen Ring. You shouldn't have used so much shadow magic," Yami scolded. If he'd been in the right state of mind, Bakura would have said something smart in response to that, but right now he was barely paying attention to the conversation. He recalled Marik's words from earlier, telling him that he should really try eating something, and that suddenly seemed like a really good idea. While Bakura himself did not need food to survive, Ryou's body certainly still did, and with the strain of using shadow magic, coupled with the running around he'd been doing now, his host's body had had too much.

"We'll just have to leave him." That was Kaiba's voice, the bastard. "The helicopter has to be here by now, and if we don't worry, it'll leave without us. It's better for at least some of us to escape than for no one to."

"No." That was Scofield.

Up until this point, Scofield has always had some amount of power over the group, being one of the only two who knew how the escape was going to happen, and the only one who'd actually had some measure of experience in this type of thing. Whenever he said something in that low, steady voice of his, everyone immediately listened. But something had clicked in his head, and now the commanding tone he already possessed was doubled. His voice was even lower than before, and even more steady, but just as quiet, like he was forcing them all to really lean in close and to hear what he was saying.

"He's coming with us. I'm not leaving anyone behind. Not like I did last time."

Bakura had no idea what he was talking about. After all, he'd never watched Prison Break. But both Kaiba and Yami seemed to, and they both started talking all at once, which was way too much stimulation for Bakura's over-worked brain. He immediately tuned them all out, and only zoomed back in when he heard what was possibly the sweetest sounding voice in the world, despite its high-pitched, nasally quality.

"Bakura! What the hell happened?"

It was Marik, Marik had returned. Instead of just standing around and _talking_ about what was wrong with him, Marik actually leaned down and helped him pick himself up off the floor. The blonde helped Bakura into a standing position and then allowed him to lean against his side as he listened to what the others had to say about what had happened.

"Just give him his damn necklace already! We don't have time for this!" Kaiba growled.

"Shut the hell up, Kaiba," Marik shot back. Kaiba's eyes narrowed dangerously, but for the time being he kept his big mouth shut. To the side of him, Marik wrestled with something hidden in the folds of his baggy blue prison shirt. He took out a flash of gold and handed it to Yami, and then a second flash was placed tenderly over Bakura's head.

The moment he felt the familiar weight of the Sennen Ring against his chest, Bakura felt better than he had since the first time he'd taken control of Ryou's body. Energy flowed back in to him and rejuvenated his strength. His sight cleared, and he stood on his own with no problem. Now that he could see correctly again, he saw that the Pharaoh too looked much better with the Sennen Puzzle back in its own place.

"Feel better now?" Mrik questioned from beside him. He still had his arm around his waist, Bakura noted, though it was no longer needed.

"Much better," Bakura smirked, and then just because he could, and because Marik looked too damn cute for his own good when he was confused, Bakura swooped down and scooped the blonde up into his arms and kissed him passionately. The other occupants of the small broom closet made varying noises of discomfort, but he hardly cared about any of them. When he released Marik, he was smiling too.

"Well I think we're ready to go now," he announced to the others. Kaiba muttered something under his breath, but no one bothered to comment. It had taken nine days, but they were all getting out now. Not too bad, considering that the majority of their group all hated one another.

Outside of the broom closet was another narrow passage, at the end of which was a ladder that led to the roof. One after another, they all six climbed up the ladder, and one after another, they all stood atop the roof. Right there, just like it was supposed to be, was a small, stealthy, black helicopter that had managed to not be seen by any of the guards outside of the prison. How the pilot had done it, Bakura didn't know, and he really didn't care. They'd all had their parts to play, and now the only thing left to do was leave.

It was a tight squeeze, but the six men were able to all fit into the helicopter. Locke went up to the front to help co-pilot, and Marik was forced to sit on Bakura's lap, and the Pharaoh on Kaiba's, which provided the two villains with endless entertainment for the entire trip.

"Well who would have thought this thing would actually work?" Bakura said in Marik's ear once they were up in the air and the prison was out of sight.

"You saying you didn't have any confidence in your own plan?" Marik questioned back.

"Of course I did! Nothing I think of ever fails," he announced pridefully. Marik chuckled.

"Except your plan to steal that tv, right?"

"Well that was a minor setback. But we'll get it next time," he decided.

"As long as we don't wind up in that place again," Marik said.

"Aw, but then we'd get to finish the rest of that fantasy of yours," Bakura teased darkly, leaning in closer to nip at Marik's ear, which resulted in a delightful shiver.

"What's to say we can't finish it when we get back to the apartment?" Marik replied with a suggestive grin of his own that sent Bakura off into a fantasy of his own, filled with all the amazing things he could do to that willing body of Marik's.

"Sounds like a plan."

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><p>So in keeping with my unhealthy obsession of babbling way too much at the beginning of chapters as well as the end, here we are. Anyone able to tell I had no idea how to end this? I just started making people go on and on until I hopefully churned out a good line. I feel like my endings have gotten less and less satisfactory as time goes on. I'm going to have to work on that.<p>

Sort of going along with that, I don't know if anyone has noticed or if it's just me, but I kind of feel like my writing style has become a bit more... detached with these last few chapters. I'm not sure if I like it. I feel like I haven't been going as deep into the character's mind in most parts, and so in the few spots where I do, it just feels weird. Weigh in on this if you care to. I'm going to try and get back to the way I was writing before, but hey, if you like the way these last few chapters have turned out, just let me know and I'll stop worrying about it so much.

Other than that, I seriously have no clue what this chapter was. It popped into my head while I was in the shower. Like, I already knew I was going to do some Prison Break-like thing, but Scofield was never a part of it before. And neither was Locke. Actually, he had no point in being here at all, but I just like him. And there was no Prideshipping. I wanted Kaiba and Yami, but it was more of a funny type thing. I don't even care for Prideshipping that much. Like, it's good, but i think I'm more of a Puppy/Puzzleshipping type girl. But anyways! Enough talking! This AN here was particularly useless. But so as always, give me a review, let me know what you thought, and I will see you next Friday! Thanks!

It's also come to my attention that we've reached over 100,000 words. Why can't I write short chapters?


	14. Everybody's Lookin' Forward

Hi peeps! Told you I would have it up today! So it's a bit of a short one, but I really enjoy it, so hopefully it'll be good for everyone else as well! Chapter more or less inspired by the song "I Kissed A Boy" by Cobra Starship.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh. Or the song "Friday". Or "I Kissed A Boy". But I am totally going to getting a badass tattoo of the Eye of Horus, hurhur.

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><p>Chapter Fourteen: Everybody's Lookin' Forward To The Weekend, Weekend<p>

It was one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time.

However, as was usually the case when combining idea-making with varying states of intoxication, it really wasn't a good idea at all.

Marik's line of reasoning went something like this: he was alone, at a bar. That was no good, so he needed to find a girl. Girls liked men. Girls like _gay_ men. Kind of in the same way that men liked lesbians. If he were gay, girls would like him. He wanted girls to like him. He needed to make it look like he was gay. He needed to kiss a man.

It seemed like a perfectly wonderful idea, with absolutely no drawbacks. Logically, it made complete sense. His reasoning was sound. If Marik Ishtar found a man to kiss, he would have all the women in the bar on him in no time. Women were like that. The moment they saw something they thought was cute, they squealed and dove at it in a frenzied fight to smother it with love (and their bosoms). Marik did not have a problem with any of that. He could be smothered all day long, and you wouldn't hear a single peep out of him. So all he needed to do now was find that man.

The choice wasn't all that hard. In fact, his decision was made for him almost instantly when he quickly cast his solicitous glance around the packed bar and zoomed in on one head of hair in particular. White hair. This did not scream old to him, but interesting, and Marik decided immediately that this would be the guy. So without further ado, he waltzed on over to the man in that over-confident style of walking that all men get when they've had a bit too much and think they're on top of the world, spun the guy around, and laid a big one on him.

The kiss didn't last for a very long time. The first second was eaten away entirely by the second male trying to wrap his mind around what exactly was going on, and Marik feeling his lips tingle in a way not altogether unpleasant. The second second was where the shock finally shone in the other man's chestnut brown eyes. The third was occupied with a slight shifting of those soft lips that Marik found himself up against, a twitch completely involuntary, but that managed to send one of his own down Marik's spine. The fourth was where the stranger began to get antsy, and Marik started to realize that something was wrong here. They did not reach a fifth.

Marik was a firm believer in the idea that you could really get to know a man by the way he fights. If that was the truth, then Marik became acquainted with his new friend on a much deeper level than any number of kisses could provoke, and all in a quick matter of a second round of fast traveling seconds. The guy might have looked like a creampuff to our protagonist, but by the prowess of his punches, evidently, this was not the case.

Now bar fights were not an uncommon thing in the particular haunt Marik had chosen to grace with his divine presence. As such, after the fight was broken, neither male was forced to leave, though both were strongly advised to stay away from each other for the rest of the night. Marik decided that this was the best course of action, and so he took it and made it his own.

He walked back to the bar and ordered himself another drink. His lips tingled as he placed them against the blessedly cool glass, but he tried not to think about that. Something strange had occurred when he'd kissed the white haired man. Two things actually, but only one was—persistently—occupying his mind.

The first strange occurrence was the lack of women flocking to him. They had all seen him kiss the man, he knew they had, for everyone had, but no one was coming to give him the smothering of a lifetime. This was the thought that was dancing around the back of Marik's head, pushed aside by the second, which was the true problem. For when he had kissed the stranger, it hadn't altogether been an unpleasant experience.

This was not supposed to happen. He was drunk, but _surely_ not that drunk! Was he? Had he really crossed the line where it did not matter who he managed to pull into bed with him, so long as there was a body to keep him warm? He'd ordered the same drink he always did, but never before had he felt this way about some random stranger he'd met at the bar. Some random _male_ stranger. Maybe someone had slipped him something. Maybe he had somehow managed to pick up someone else's drink. Maybe he'd had more than he thought. Any of these were very likely possibilities. One of them had to be the correct answer. Because the only other one was something he did _not_ want to think about, yet something he found floating around in his mind regardless of how many mental barriers he had constructed to keep such things from breaking free of the filters he normally had in place. That something was not true. That something _could__not_be true. Because Marik Ishtar was _not_ gay.

The unwanted truth is a fierce competitor, and intoxicated as he was, Marik didn't stand much of a chance against it.

It was in the way his lips continued to burn, no matter how many ice cubes he sucked on.

It was in the way that more often than not, he realized his fingers were tracing the soft folds of skin without his even knowing they were there.

It was in the way he was now discretely looking around, trying to find that same shock of white hair he had spotted so easily before.

It was in the way he tried to remember what the man had been wearing.

It was in the way all of his thoughts revolved around that one, carelessly thought out action.

No, Marik did not stand a chance against the barrage of emotions that he did not want to acknowledge, yet had not the mental powers to stand up against. He knew that just because he found _one_ male to be attractive did not automatically label him as queer, yet even admitting to this unanticipated and rapid attraction was like a loss to him. So he decided to drown out such thoughts with more alcohol. Because it had put him in such a good situation to begin with.

It was not until closing time, when he was forced to leave, that Marik's very sudden crush was remembered again.

He was one of the last to leave the building, not in as bad a condition as most that stumbled out into the harsh artificial light of the streetlamps, but still quite a bit a ways from sober. He stood off to the side of the building, wondering how he should go about returning home. He'd taken his motorcycle to the bar, but driving it back did not seem like such a good idea. Yet he was weary of leaving it to be collected in the morning, and unsure if he had the fare for a bus back.

The voices came from behind him, in the alleyway behind the bar.

Although Marik knew very little about the man he had kissed, other than the man had evidently disliked it enough to feel it prudent that he beat the shit out of him, when Marik heard the rough, scratchy drawl of one of the voices, he knew without a doubt that it came from the same man he had unconsciously been looking for all night. Before he could even register the movement, his feet were carrying him behind the bar, led on by the voice like the children who had followed the man with the flute into the side of a mountain, unsure of where he would lead them, but too transfixed by the sound to care.

He was not aware of the situation. He saw the man with white hair leaning against the side of the building, eyes slit, stance very relaxed and unthreatening. However, the two men in front of him were very openly displaying aggressive vibes, and spoke in harsh, loud tones. He was made to understand that someone had lost something, and the two men were convinced that the white haired one had stolen it.

Now Marik knew from very recent experience that the man was no pushover. Even though he was outmatched, Marik was sure he would be able to handle the two men. Yet something propelled him forward still into the brawl. The spell he was under was not done with him yet.

There was a fight. Marik was unsure of how it happened. He didn't even know until the two men were lying on the floor at his feet that he had won. All he knew was that he was now alone with the man he had kissed, and his throat was suddenly very dry.

"Oh how very fitting," the man said. "My savior is the same person who caused me to get into this mess."

"What?" Marik asked rather dumbly.

"You kissed me," the other male said. "I had just stolen the big guy's wallet. You came along and grabbed me before I had a chance to pocket it, and they happened to see it because of the commotion you caused. It took them a bit to make the connection that I'd taken it, but even the dullest of sheep will put two and two together if given enough proof and time."

"Oh. Sorry. What's your name?" Marik asked.

"Bakura," the male answered with a roll of his eyes.

"I'm Marik."

"Wonderful. Now was there something you wanted…?"

At this stage in the plan, Marik remembered with a shock that there _was_ no plan, and he had been led here blindly with some intent he was not even aware of. Now that he was this close to the male again and was still transfixed enough by the luck of meeting him again, he did not have time to reject the attraction and lust that screamed out of both his mind and body. So he just acted.

"A kiss," he said without thinking. And then became embarrassed by what he had blurted out, for he was not so far gone into his stupor as to forget his previous assertion that he was not gay. Bakura, however, seemed to be thinking much more clearly than Marik, and his tantalizing lips curled into an even more erotic grin.

"I see," he replied knowingly. There was just enough assertion, just enough confidence in his voice to make Marik's face open up in thinly-veiled horror as he thought that his secret attraction had been revealed. Before he could even begin to protest this, Bakura was talking again, and just like before, the only thing he could do was stand, listen, and obey.

"You enjoyed that little kiss we shared, didn't you? You didn't think that you would, but here you are. You find me irresistible, don't you?"

"No!" Marik protested fiercely. The effect of it was ruined when Bakura pushed him hard against the cold brick wall of the bar and adhered their bodies together, making him shiver.

"Want to lie again? It'll make you feel better if you keep fighting it," he said with a serpentine grin. And a tongue just as forked and snake-like slid out of the space between his lips and licked slowly over Marik's own. As if the position alone were not enough to wreak havoc on the poor boy's thoughts, the slippery wet saliva trail made things ever more helter-skelter inside his head.

"I just…"

Just what? Sad to say, but Marik did not know. This situation hadn't been exactly what he'd had in mind when he'd decided to go to the bar. Maybe something like it, but it was certainly not a male he saw himself entangled with. When had things gotten so out of hand and off plan? Probably when he had kissed Bakura the first time. A mistake, he decided, he was going to repeat again.

The second time around, with his mind no longer preoccupied with thoughts of impressing women, Marik was able to enjoy much more thoroughly the taste of Bakura's lips and mouth. Because of yes, those lips were open for him to explore. And he did. Arduously. He found the taste to be quite enjoyable.

"So what do we do now?" Bakura asked, still entangled in Marik's arms, and vice-versa.

"You going to take advantage of me?" Marik questioned. For he was still drunk. Not enough so to know that he didn't mind the idea, but enough so that were he sober, he might have fought against the inevitable a bit harder.

"Only if you want me to," Bakura said.

"Oh what the fuck. I can't drive home anyways," Marik replied. And so that was how he spent his night.

In retrospect, perhaps it had been a good idea after all.

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><p>Yay chapter! So while my writing style was a bit different this time around again, I really liked the way this one flowed, I don't know. I have absolutely no idea what the next chapter is going to be, which is kind of sad seeing as chapter fifteen is "Partyin' Partyin' (Yeah)." Hopefully I'll think of something that's not long. I have a short story I really need to get started writing due Tuesday... I have one written already, but I don't like the ending, and I want to play around with different forms of narrative. Anyways, please remember to review, and thank you!<p> 


	15. Partyin' Partyin' Yeah

Saturday? Who said anything about Saturday? Only people who don't know that the true meaning of Friday is on the inside, of course.

Ahem. So yeah, late. But it's still out. Had a bit of a hard time with this chapter, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with it. I mean, with the lyric I figured I needed to have some awesomely epic chapter about drinking and dancing and debauchery, but then I decided that _this_ was the better idea XD

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or the song "Friday."

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><p>Chapter Fifteen: Partyin' Partyin' (Yeah)<p>

"But _Isis_! I _hate_ him! I don't want him to come to my party!"

Marik Ishtar, aged seven, was turning eight in about a week.

"Marik, he invited you to his party. It's only fair that you invite him to yours."

"But I _hate_ him! I don't wanna!"

His sister, Isis Ishtar, was trying to make a list of all the invitations he would need for his classmates to invite them to the party.

"Marik! Don't say that about your friends!"

Marik was not making it easy for her.

"He's not my friend!"

Marik was excited. He had waited _all __year_ for his birthday to come, and now it was nearly here! When Isis had told him she would help him with the invitations, nothing could have been better! Marik had told her everyone he wanted to come and together they had written out the invitations, Isis's elegant wording pristine compared to the sprawling scrawl of Marik's letters as he spelled out his classmates names. He was inviting nearly all of them. All of them except for one, who Isis remembered only because she had been the one to take her younger brother to the boy's own birthday party. When asked why he did not want to invite this one boy, Marik had _tried_ to explain that it was because he was _mean_, but Isis would have none of it. She had written the invitation anyways.

"Marik, he invited you to his own party, and you went and had a great time, didn't you? Didn't you?" Isis repeated when her stubborn younger brother refused to answer.

"_Yes_," Marik sighed, dragging the word out much more than it was meant to be.

"And how do you think he would feel if he were the only one in your class who didn't get an invitation? Don't you think he would feel sad?"

"_Yes_."

"Well then it's settled. You'll give him this invitation and invite him to your party," Isis decided, handing the last of the manila cards over.

"But I don't want to!" Marik insisted once again. "He's mean! He always picks on me in class, and I only had fun at his party because all of my friends were there! He threw cake in my face, and Rishid had to wash it all out when I came home, remember?"

"Marik, I'm sure he was only trying to have fun," Isis said, sighing. Her brother would not relent. And while she'd had no problem with helping her cute brother write his invitations, she still had homework of her own to finish, and then her friends to hang out with later. She couldn't stay here and argue all day long.

"No he wasn't! He was laughing at me!" Marik argued.

"Marik," Isis said, "If this boy is being mean to you, then it's probably only because he likes you. I'm sure he just wants to be your friend. So why don't you give him the invitation, and maybe he'll come around?"

Marik immediately opened his mouth to argue some more, because Isis was wrong and he was doing nothing more than just being _mean_, but he stopped when he Isis opened up her phone and quickly sent a text to one of her friends. He frowned, but he took the invitation anyways, and placed it carefully with the others inside his book bag.

"_Fine_," he relented, "but he's still mean."

But yet, mean as he was, there was still an invitation with his name on it, and the next day after handing out all the other ones, Marik reluctantly walked up to the desk of his classmate, feeling the lone invitation weigh in his back bag like a ton of bricks. All day he had passed out his invitations and purposefully avoided the one embroidered with the name of the boy he so loathed. All day, as he handed out more and more of his invitations with the exception of that one, his book bag had seemed to grow heavier and heavier, as if the one invitation left in had had begun to accumulate significance. Now, it was almost as heavy as the heaviest bag of groceries Marik had helped carry up the stairs when his siblings got done shopping. School would be ending soon, and he knew that if he didn't give the invitation away now, Isis would not be happy when she found it still in his book bag when he went home. He knew he could always throw it away, but he was scared that somehow Isis would know if he'd done anything with it other than give it to the boy he did not want to.

The name on the invitation read "Bakura", and it was to the boy of the same name that Marik handed it to. Bakura was the same age as him, and even a little bit shorter, but he still seemed much older than anyone else in class. This was most likely because of the rotten attitude he had. Already he had a disdain for his classmates and teachers and the school system in general. He liked to stick to himself, and when he did talk to the other boys in the class, it was only to insult them or pick on them. Because of that, no one talked to Bakura or liked him much. That was why Marik had been so surprised to get an invite from the boy to his birthday party. He had _almost_ thought that Bakura wasn't so bad. But then Bakura had thrown cake in his face.

He thrust his hand with the invitation out to Bakura, who took his sweet time in looking up from the picture he was scribbling on the desk and glared at Marik hard with those cool brown eyes of his.

"What's this?" he asked.

"An invitation to my birthday party," Marik forced out through gritted teeth. Bakura smiled an eerie grin that looked more like it belonged at home on the face of an adult than a small child.

"I thought I wouldn't get one," he said.

"I didn't want to but my sister made me," Marik answered, and thrust the envelope once more impatiently in Bakura's face. "Are you taking it or what?"

Bakura continued to smile, but slowly unfurled an arm from where it had laid around his side and slowly reached up to grab the envelope.

"I'll be there," he said. Marik frowned and stuck his tongue out at the boy, then turned and headed back to his own seat, where he fumed and pretended not to hear Bakura's mocking laughter ringing in his reddened ears.

For the next few days up until his birthday party, Marik tried hard not to think about Bakura. He wanted to _enjoy_ his party and all the presents he would get, not think about how much he did _not_ want the other boy coming to it. He hoped that maybe Bakura would get sick and not be able to go.

He was almost sure this was the case when on the last day of school before his party Bakura did not show up. The seat he usually took as his own was left vacated for the entire day, and it spread a warm feeling all throughout Marik. This would be the best party ever! Nothing could ruin it now! Yet, ruined it was when one of the first people to ring the doorbell to the Ishtar house was Bakura himself. Marik, upon hearing the bell and knowing it was just about time for his friends to arrive, ran to the door and swung it open so hard it almost made a dent in the wall. There, staring at him in the same condescending manner he did at school, was the person Marik least wanted to show up. And as the first guest of the day too, no doubt!

Unfortunately, Isis had also emerged from the kitchen where she had just finished helping to put the last bit of frosting on his cake, and her presence at the door prevented Marik from saying what he really wished to.

"Hello! Thank you so much for coming! You're the little boy who invited Marik to his birthday party not too long ago, aren't you? Look at that Marik, he was the first to show up. How nice." Marik stuck his tongue out at Bakura from behind Isis where she couldn't see. Bakura smiled sweetly.

"I was so excited to be invited," he said. He sounded like he was telling the truth, but Marik knew he was lying. The only reason Bakura would be excited was if he got to tease Marik some more.

"Well come on in. Once the other boys get here things will be a bit more exciting, but for now the two of you can just sit in the living room," Isis said, leading the boy inside the house after he took off his shoes. Marik noticed that he didn't have a present with him. Not only that, he but just _knew_ that Bakura hadn't been in class the day before on purpose. He'd done it just to make Marik think that maybe, _maybe_ he wouldn't show up at the party either. Marik _really_ hated him.

"My house is bigger than yours," Bakura announced snidely after Isis had retreated back to the kitchen and was out of earshot. The white haired boy was sitting on the couch in the living room with his feet dangling in the air, while Marik stood in the middle of the room with his arms crossed. He'd gotten as far away from the other boy as he could once his sister had left.

"You're a liar," Marik snarled.

"My sister is prettier too," Bakura continued on, oblivious to Marik's retorts.

"She's only a baby!" Marik protested. He knew this only because when he'd gone over to Bakura's house for his birthday party, the other boy's mom had shown the baby off to every single child there.

"And she's still prettier!" Bakura insisted. Marik walked up to the boy with his fist clenched. He was going to hit him. Bakura saw this and for only a second his face lost some of its cockiness, but then the ringing of the doorbell a second time saved him. Marik gladly left his present company and headed for the door, hoping the new arrival was someone he actually liked.

It was, and soon after the arrival of the second guest, only more continued to trickle in. Marik forgot all about Bakura for the time being, and concentrated only on having fun at his party. Bakura didn't like playing with any of them, so he sat in the back and scowled as everyone else had fun with the games planned for the day. This was perfectly fine with Marik, who hadn't wanted him here in the first place. Once, Isis came out and tried talking to him and getting him to join in with the rest of the kids, but he insisted that he did not want to. She gave up after a while.

They played tons of games. Hide and seek and tag, and then they ran around killing each other with sticks and branches for a while. There were some other games set up too, like board games and things Isis had played at her own birthdays and knew how to do. Then they wrestled and forced Rishid to be the referee and decide who won. Marik always did. And then finally when they were tired out for a little bit, out came the cake and all of the excitement came rushing back.

It was the best cake that Marik had ever remembered eating! Much better than the one Bakura had at his birthday party, though of course the other boy didn't think so. Because of his sister's meddling, she forced Bakura to sit next to him in hopes that the boy would start to have a better time. That meant that Marik would have a horrible one.

"This taste bad," Bakura commented as he toyed with the slice on his plate.

"Then don't eat it!" Marik hissed.

"But then I wouldn't be able to make fun of you," Bakura smiled. Marik growled and turned back to his own slice of cake and stabbed at it fiercely. He chewed it and thought to himself that Bakura was _obviously_ lying, because this cake was the best cake ever, so there!

Marik was so busy eating his cake that he didn't notice the devious smile that spread across Bakura's face as he stared at his own slice. Bakura picked the cake up carefully and held it with both hands, then pulled the same trick he had done at his own party, and smooshed it against Marik's face. Cake went _everywhere_.

Marik growled and had just about enough time to decide this was the last straw before suddenly _more_ cake was in his face, from the boy on the other side of him. And _then_ cake was all _over_ the place, because _everyone_ was throwing it around now, and it was in _everyone__'__s_ faces. The entire thing turned into one giant food fight, and no one was safe from it, except Bakura, whom no one dared to throw anything at.

While the fight _was_ fun, it did not improve Marik's mood any. He was _angry_. He was _very_ angry. Because the fight had been started by Bakura, and he _hated_ Bakura. Bakura ruined _everything_!

Now he stood up from the table while everyone else was distracted with the food fight and yanked Bakura by the arm and dragged him with him. He pulled and pulled until he got a moderate space away from the rest of the guests, and then he dropped Bakura's hand and glared at him angrily, after swiping his face free of any cake remnants.

"Why did you do that?" he demanded.

"'Cuz I wanted to," Bakura said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Why can't you just leave me alone?" Marik asked.

"'Cuz I don't wanna. I don't like you," Bakura responded.

"You're lying. Isis said you make fun of me because you like me," Marik spat out. Bakura's eyes widened in horror and his pale face brightened with red.

"I do not!" he yelled.

"Do too! Why else are you so mean?"

"'Cuz I wanna be, that's why! I don't like no one!"

"You're just a dirty liar!"

"No I'm not! If I liked you, I'd do something like this!" Bakura screwed his eyes closed and stepped forward with an abrupt, shaky movement and pressed his puckered lips against Marik's. Marik's own eyes widened to comical proportions, and after a second of feeling the foreign flesh on his own, he took a hasty step back and brought his hand up to his lips and scrubbed furiously.

"_Ew_! Ew, ew, ew! Why would you _do_ that?" Marik shrieked.

"Because I don't like you, that's why!" Bakura answered, arms crossed and eyes narrow, managing to look very composed and collected.

"Then why did you kiss me?" Marik demanded. Bakura's calm façade died as he struggled to find an answer.

"I just don't! I hate you! I _hate_ you! You're stupid!"

"Then leave! I don't want you here anyways!"

Both boys stood with their fists clenched and their small bodies shaking, each one about ready to sock the other one. The would-be fight was prevented once again from occurring by the arrival of Isis, who had noticed about halfway through the food fight that her brother and his friend were missing. When they saw her show up, they both immediately took a step back and looked down at the ground, embarrassed, wanting to pretend like nothing at all had been happening.

"Boys! What have you been doing? Your party is going on without you, Marik. The food fight finally died down, and now everyone is waiting for you to open your presents," Isis said.

Marik's glance slid sideways to look at Bakura as he wondered whether or not he should bring up the kiss. Then his face heated up once again and decided that it was probably not a good idea to do so. It was embarrassing! So instead he just grumbled out some excuse and followed his sister back to the crowd of guests. Bakura followed behind at a slower pace, and was soon lost in the same crowd. Marik was finally able to pretend like he wasn't here anymore.

The pile of presents was big, the biggest one he'd gotten yet! There were cards and boxes covered in sparkly paper and big ribbons, and every single one of them had _his_ name on them. Even though he still had cake on his forehead and clothes and in his hair, and it had taken Rishid _forever_ to get it out the first time, Marik was still happy at the idea of getting to open all of those presents. The eyes of his friends all looked at him eagerly, each boy waiting for Marik to open up _his_ present, because _his_ would ultimately be the _best_, but also wanting to see the other presents and get to play with those too. Marik smiled at them all and grabbed the first present on the pile. He went to open it, but then he frowned because he _still_ couldn't see Bakura anywhere.

He was _glad_ that he couldn't see Bakura, because he didn't _want_ to and he _hated_ Bakura, but he didn't like him not being there. He wanted to keep any eye on him—only because he didn't want him messing anything up again! So Marik put down the present and marched into the crowd of his friends and sought out Bakura. He grabbed the boy's arm and dragged him forward and released him when he was right by Marik's side.

Bakura opened up his mouth to no doubt say something mean, but Marik cut him off.

"Shut up," he commanded, and Bakura's mouth snapped closed, though he continued to glare.

"You wanted to come here, so you're gonna have fun with everyone else and stop being such a jerk," he elaborated. Bakura scoffed and crossed his arms and purposefully looked away from Marik and his presents. He remained where he was however, and that was good enough for Marik to start opening his big pile of presents. He just pretended to not notice when halfway through the pile Bakura started peeking.

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><p>Um, so really nothing to say at the end here I guess. Gonna try to write something for next chapter that's Halloweeny, but we'll see how that turns out. Please remember to review, and thanks!<p> 


	16. Fun, Fun, Fun, Fun

Hello there. Yes, it's late again. I've just been super busy. This actually isn't even the entire chapter... I wanted to finish the entire thing, but I just couldn't... So it'll be continued at a later date then. For now, this is what you get.

However, while the chapter isn't as Halloweeny as I wanted it to be, it is based off a movie series that always comes out on Halloween. if that's not enough of a hint, here's another: only the first three movies were actually good. All the other ones I watch solely for the gore. So many cops and people running around I can't even remember who they all are anymore... (Anyone guess what it is yet? The summary should also be a good clue.)

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh, the song "Friday", or the movie that this chapter is mostly inspired by.

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><p>Chapter Sixteen: Fun, Fun, Fun, Fun<p>

When Bakura woke up, it was with another man handcuffed to his wrist.

Now, this particular situation wasn't exactly something he was unaccustomed to. On various different occasions in the past, Bakura had woken up in similar situations. Of course, on those mornings the handcuffs from the night before were usually off, and had only ever been on one person to begin with, but the point was, by itself, the situation wasn't so unusual.

What was unusual was that he could not remember having gone out at night. When he did go out, he preferred to have memory of what he'd spent the night doing, so it was doubtful that he had drank too much and experienced a blackout. What was even more unusual was that the man still sleeping next to him was fully clothed. And by far the most unexpected turn of events was that the two seemed to be in an empty building of some sort. There was a dim, flickering orange light that shed only the dimmest of glows in a ten-foot radius of the corner it was located in. Any further than that, and the light evaporated into the steady grow of darkness that stretched beyond the tiny area of luminance.

"Hey. Wake up," Bakura said, pushing the still form of the man across from him. He didn't budge. Muttering to himself, Bakura put his hands underneath him and pushed up off the ground. The dead weight attached to his wrist moved slightly, and then no more. Bakura growled and muttered some more and ferociously _yanked_ on the length of chain attaching him to the other male. This definitely earned him a reaction. The man groggily sat up and rubbed his eyes, then looked around the room in the same manner Bakura himself had.

"Not much to see," Bakura said. This brought the man's attention to him. Under the off-orange color of the light, everything looked a bit strange, and so Bakura could not get an accurate picture of how this person looked. At any rate, he was certainly unique.

"Who are you? And where are we?" he asked.

"How should I know? I woke up here, same as you," Bakura replied. The stranger opened his mouth to say more, but suddenly a loud clanging sound was heard, and the entire building was illuminated by brightly shining fluorescent lights. Both males covered their eyes and instinctually cringed until they got used to the brightness.

As Bakura had said earlier, there wasn't much to see. The two found themselves in what looked to be an old, mostly empty warehouse. The floors were cold cement and the whitewashed walls were peeling. One of the hanging lights flickered on and off in what would have been eerie if it weren't so damn annoying. It was a good thing neither of them were epileptic. At the corner across from them was a decrepit looking and diseased toilet, complete with a stand-up sink that had also seen better days. Other than these two things, there were some rusted, broken pipes hanging from the ceiling, a large pile of broken up rock and concrete in the farthest corner from them, an old radiator, a clock, and half a chair. The legs were missing from it.

"I don't remember coming here," the male who still sat on the floor said.

"What _do_ you remember?" Bakura asked, curious now. Because when he stopped to think about it, he didn't remember much either. The male on the floor regarded him suspiciously.

"I'm not telling you anything," he said. "How do I know you aren't the person who dragged me here?"

"How can I be sure that _you__'__re_ not?" Bakura retorted. The male's lips pursed as he frowned. In the natural coloring of white light, Bakura could see him much more clearly now. Blonde, but without the usual shadow of dimwittedness he usually saw in the eyes of mortals. Unusual, but then again, everything about this person seemed to be unusual, from his tanned mocha skin to his electric violet eyes. What exactly was someone like him doing in a place like this? Bakura could almost imagine himself having wandered into this shithole somehow, but his companion didn't at all seem like the type of person to visit such areas of disuse.

"We'll just have to trust each other for the time being it seems," the blonde announced thoughtfully, bringing Bakura out of his own musings. "At least until we find a way out."

"Sounds good to me," Bakura announced cheerfully, and promptly began to march forward, causing the other male to let out an ungainly squawk as he was yanked forward.

"Watch it!" he hissed, climbing to his feet so that he could keep up. There was at most three feet of chain separating their individual handcuffs, and when the other male caught up to Bakura's long stride, it jangled uselessly at their sides.

"You said that you want to get out of here, right? Well then we had better start exploring. Not going to find anything just by sitting around." The male frowned again, but he didn't argue with Bakura's statement.

The first place he headed to was the pile of torn cement and rock. It was a huge pile, and if something was hidden somewhere in this room, the most obvious place to hide it was in that pile. Maybe a little too obvious, but it was a good first guess at any rate, and they didn't seem to be headed somewhere anytime fast. The clock on the wall was noisily ticking away, but nothing exciting had occurred thus far, other than waking up in a mystery building with no recollection of how he'd gotten there and finding himself handcuffed to some stranger with no visible means of escape. But you know. No biggie.

"You happen to have a shovel with you?" Bakura asked his companion. He meant the words as a sort of joke, but the blonde obviously took them literally, and gestured to his skinny frame with a look that spoke volumes of what he thought about Bakura's intelligence level.

"Guess we're moving it all by hand then," Bakura said, ignoring this look and the implications that came with it. Normally he wouldn't, but he was a bit more concerned with figuring a way to get out of this mess than repairing the tiny blow to his pride. He started with a large chunk of rock and tossed it aside while the other male just watched him, not too keen on getting himself dirty.

"Care to help?" Bakura asked.

"Not really," the stranger replied, though he too began to help move away cement and rock. It was a tiresome activity, and certainly a messy one. Dust floated up from the pieces of debris, no matter how careful the two were in moving them, and soon they both found themselves coated in a fine layer of the white stuff. Bakura didn't care too much about this, but his companion surely did.

"We're getting nowhere!" he complained. They'd actually gotten about half-way through the pile, but Bakura figured this wasn't what he meant.

"There could be something hidden in there," Bakura pointed out.

"Like what?"

"A key, maybe? Something that will help us get out of here?"

"I think if there actually _were_ something like that, we would have found it already," the other man said, wiping dust off his skimpy clothes and skin. The blonde unfortunately was wearing black pants and a purple colored hoodie—both dark-colored garments, which made the white dust stand out even more. No matter how hard he patted and swatted, Bakura could already tell that the outfit was ruined. Not that he was going to say that; it was much more fun to watch his companion struggle to be rid of it all.

"There might be," he said instead. The other male paused in his frantic wiping of his clothes and fixed Bakura with a hard stare.

"Yeah right," he said. "At any rate, why don't we look somewhere else first? If we need to, we can come back to this, although I doubt that we will." Bakura shrugged and stood up, briefly wiping some dust off his own clothes as well, though he knew the effort was futile. Then he followed the stranger over to the broken chair, which was kicked around by the toe of a boot-clad foot, as if it were diseased. Upon finding nothing there, the blonde then herded them both over to the radiator. The thing was ancient and covered in dirt and rust, and it only took one look at the thing to make up the blonde's mind that that too could be dealt with at a later time. The last stop then was the toilet and sink combo. Both of which were rancid.

Unlike the toilet, the sink did not actually have any stagnant water in it. However, the smell of it was just about the same. The porcelain mouth of it was caked in streaky grime. Only one small sliver of the original white shone though, and it just made the entire thing that much dirtier by comparison. The two were luckily saved from seeing the state of the porcelain innards of the toilet. Unluckily, the reason behind this was the near-black water that quivered and threatened to spill over the bowl and onto the floor. Both males stared at it.

"I'm not going anywhere _near_ that," the blonde said decisively.

"Well _I__'__m_ not either," Bakura replied. "_I__'__m_ not the one who wanted to go search elsewhere. I was perfectly content with the concrete pile. This one's all on you." The other male _glared_, hard, but Bakura would not budge. He stood still with his arms crossed over his chest and a smirk on his face. After a stare-off that he most definitely _did__not_ win, the male, muttering under his breath in some foreign language, finally took a step towards the loathsome toilet. With a visible shudder, he stretched his hand forward and plunged it into the depths of the bowl.

Black-brown water spilled over the sides of the bowl, and Bakura took a cautionary step backwards, causing the chain between them to jingle and grow taut. The male searched around in it for a few seconds, then finally withdrew his hand with a black bag clutched in tightly in it.

"You are _so_ lucky there was actually something in there. If I had to do that for no reason, your head would have gone in next," the male threatened violently. Bakura only continued to smirk and smile.

"Well open it up then."

"I'm getting to it! _Excuse_ me for wanting to get this _crap_ off my hand first!"

Pissy pissy, Bakura thought to himself. And quite fiery as well. It was rare occurrence that Bakura met someone who gave back every good as he got. Despite the situation, he was rather enjoying himself here.

Once the blonde got his hand reasonably clean by wiping it off on the walls (he _refused_ to touch the thick sludge coating his skin with his clothing), he finally got around to actually opening up the bag. The contents of it were both exciting and disappointing. Inside the tightly-sealed black bag was not a key to the sole door of the building, but an old-fashioned tape recorder with a small tape inside. The two crowded around it expectantly, and when it began to play it was dead silent between them.

"Hello. You do not know who I am, but I know more than enough about the two of you. Bakura Ryou, you spend your days taking advantage of innocents. You pretend to need the help of your victim, and then instead help yourself to his or her identity and bank account.

"Marik Ishtar, you make your living by selling high-priced fakes of famous art pieces on the black market. You are a very talented artist, but instead of putting your talent to good use and struggling to make a clean name for yourself, you willingly choose to drag that name though the filth of dishonesty."

Both males, now suddenly acquainted and with knowledge not only of the other's name, but what was most likely his darkest secret as well, stared at each other as the tiny voice coming from the recorder paused. Marik's hand tightly gripped the device. When it started up again it instantly captured their attention once more.

"Despite all of this, I refuse to believe that the two of you are bad people. I believe that you both need to learn a lesson, and so that is why I have brought you here. Because you refuse to learn on your own, I will teach you that lesson.

"The lesson you both will be learning here to today is one of friendship. I know that both of you are the types to work alone and care about no one other than yourselves. I believe this is the main reason behind why the two of you choose to live the lives you do. You will have an hour to work together and learn how to be a friend. If you cannot do this in that time, I will have no choice but to turn you both over to the police.

"The sedative in your bloodstream has been designed to wear off in an hour. Depending on how long it took you to find this tape, it should be just around eleven o'clock. You have until midnight to learn your lesson and revise your lifestyle built upon the pain and suffering of others. If you do not, it will be your own pain and suffering that you are forced to live with.

"So now, the only question left to ask is, do you want to play a game?"

With that final chilling sentence, the tape ended. Both males simultaneously looked at the clock that was hanging on the wall. It read as a quarter after. Apparently they had taken a lot more time than the voice on the tape recorder had thought they would.

"We've got to find a way out of here," Marik announced.

"I realize," Bakura said, "But how are we going to do that? There wasn't a key in the bag."

"Then we try to break the door open. We don't have time to search for it."

Improbable, but it was better than nothing. Both men headed over to the heavy door. There was a large metal handle, like the type that would be found on a walk-in freezer. It was not the type of handle that could be broken. Despite this, Marik grasped it tightly in both hands and began to pull. After just a little resistance, it opened.

"It was never locked to begin with, was it?" Bakura questioned. It wasn't. Neither decided to mention the fact that they thought the other should have bothered to check that in the first place. They were on a time limit if they didn't want their secrets to be revealed, and they had no time for arguing, however valid it would be. Instead, the headed down the darkened hallway that led them to who knew where.

The first room the hallway led them to was dark when they entered it. The door slammed shut behind them and locked, and then all of a sudden bright lights turned on and caused them both to wince and hide their eyes. Once they had gotten used to the sudden brightness, they looked around to see an old room similar to the first they'd woken up in, but even emptier than the first. The only noticeable difference was that this one held a wooden chair much like the first, only complete with legs and a black-haired male sitting upright in it. He held a small tape in his hand, and when they approached he held it out to them. Marik took it and gently eased it into the tape recorder, placing the first into the pocket of his pants. He pressed the play button and silence befell them once again as the tiny, static-filled voice sang out in the empty room.

"Hello again. The person you see in front of you is a friend of mine, Ryuuji Otogi. You now have the chance to befriend him as well.

"Your first task is this: you have ten minutes to give Otogi some good advice. Often in life, a friend will come before you with a problem that he needs help with. This task is to teach you how to give that advice."

The voice ended then, and Marik put the recorder back into his pocket. At the other end of the room, a clock showed them to have about nine minutes left to complete the task. Not wanting to waste any more time, Bakura place both hands on the wooden chair and spun the man sitting in it around so that he faced him.

The guy had stunning green eyes and a dice earring in his ear. He was almost as unique as Marik himself, though there was something about the first male that appealed to Bakura more, though this new one could be arguably even more beautiful.

"All right, what's your problem? You stuck in this place to? The guy on the tape carrying around your secrets as well?" Bakura questioned. He was both hoping and expecting to hear that this was the case. Who knew how helpful this guy could be in getting out? At least he wasn't handcuffed to him.

"I used to be like you," the man, Otogi answered instead. "I was worried about nothing more than getting my name out there in the world for a game I created, and getting all the women and fame and money that came with it. But I've learned since then."

"Learned what?" Marik questioned from his usual position at Bakura's side. "That life sucks without any money?" He laughed a short, barkish laugh, and Bakura eyed him with a newfound attentiveness. Of course he knew how hard things could be if you didn't have funds, but it was interesting, to say the least, to see someone who felt the same way. And if the person on the tape was right, Marik was a bit of a thief himself, wasn't he? Interesting indeed…

"No. I've learned that money isn't the source of all happiness. There are other things in life that can make you happy."

"Like friendship, right?" Bakura interrupted with a snide grin. "So I've heard. I don't know what you've been through in your life, but money has always made me plenty happy, and I intend for it to continue doing so. That being said, I'd really like to get out of here before that hour runs out so I can continue to make some. Now maybe we can get to the point here, hmm? What exactly are we supposed to be helping you out with?"

Otogi sighed and a lazy, playboy smile came easily to his face. He stretched out in his chair as if it were made up of the most comfortable material ever, and played idly with his dice earring.

"Well you see dudes, I've got some problems with the ladies. As you can imagine, they all want me, right? And I can get whichever one I want, but I'm not sure which one to go for," he explained. Suddenly the wisdom he'd held earlier was all gone. Bakura groaned and placed his head in his hands. There was nothing he hated more than the macho types like this guy.

"What?" Marik questioned beside him, sounding just as annoyed and put-off by the abrupt attitude change as Bakura himself.

"You understand, right? You're good-looking too. The women must be all over you too. It's a curse, right?" Otogi questioned. Bakura removed his hands for this little bit of dialogue, unsure of whom exactly Otogi was talking to. He of course, figured it to be himself. He had seen quite a bit of action in his lifetime from all types of people. Otogi would naturally be talking to him. But when he raised his head, Bakura found Otogi looking not at him, but at none other than Marik. Bakura, to his horror, flushed hotly at his mistake, though luckily enough neither of the other two in the room noticed. Trying to recover from the blow, he decided to just ignore the conversation and preen his nails instead. Completely disinterested.

"Well I guess," Marik was saying. "They do seem to always be trying to get my attention whenever I go out. It's annoying."

"Well I don't know about that last part, but glad to see you understand. So like, I'm having a hard time of trying to figure out which chick is good enough to be my lady-friend. Because Ryuuji always has one of those, else he's not Ryuuji. You think you'd be able to help?" Otogi questioned.

"I doubt it," Marik answered bluntly. Bakura raised his head at that, too interested in that reply not too. "I don't usually find women attractive. They bore me."

"You mean to say that you prefer men?" he asked, interrupting whatever Otogi had been about to say. Marik's tanned face darkened considerably with the incoming rush of blood that made its way to his cheeks, and the calm with which he had said that last tantalizing statement quickly fled.

"I didn't say that! I said that I don't _usually_ find women attractive! _Usually!_ Not that I don't at all!" Marik answered indignantly, hands balled into fists and looking anywhere but at the other two males in the room. Bakura couldn't contain his mirth.

"Ahh, but you didn't say that you didn't," he retorted.

"I don't like men!" Marik insisted angrily.

"Guys! Guys! I'm the one with the problem here!" Otogi said from behind the two. In their discussion, both chained companions had turned toward each other and were now ignoring the teen that still sat in the chair, the one that, in two minutes time, they should be giving good advice to.

"Agh, just shut up!" Marik yelled. Bakura smirked evilly.

"Yes, please do," he said, turning to face Otogi once more and leaving Marik to calm himself and regain his cool. For the time being, he decided, he'd had enough fun, but he would definitely be keeping that little bit of information he'd gleaned stored away for further analysis. After all, if he was chained to the guy, he might as well get to know Marik. If they didn't get out of this thing, they would probably both end up in jail together.

"Guys, you're almost out of time—"

"No one cares," Bakura said bluntly, putting an end to Otogi's sentence before it had even really had a chance at life. "We don't care about your friendship and how it changed your life around, or how you have all these woman that love you because you're so pretty. We don't care that you are too pea-brained ot figure out for yourself which woman you should fuck. We don't care at all. All we want is to get out of here without our secrets being exposed. And," he said, looking up to the digital clock on the wall, "it seems like we're one step closer to that."

For the time had run out. The clock was flashing four brightly red zeros, indicating that their ten minutes were over. All at once Otogi's green eyes had time to widen before leather straps zipped out from the chair he was sitting on and wrapped themselves tightly around his limbs. Before any person in the room could react to this, the floor under Otogi's seat opened up and ate him up. It closed again with slow, sulky movements, very uncharacteristic to how quickly it had opened up. The door at the other side of the room opened up with a "click."

"…I wonder if we were supposed to do something about that," Marik stated eloquently. Bakura stared at the spot where Otogi had been moments before.

"We might have been," he said carefully.

"It's not a very good start, having our 'friends' get eaten up," Marik said.

"No, it's not," Bakura agreed. He started forward, careful to not step on the spot in the floor that Otogi had been situated on just moments before, just in case it opened up again and ate him too. The chain grew tight between them and yanked Bakura back for a moment, almost causing him to fall. But then he regained his balance and Marik was also moving, just as slowly and carefully as he. The room suddenly felt like it were full of traps, and even though there were lights in the place, shadows still seemed to lurk here and there, persistently clinging to life.

"But we'll have to keep going," he continued. "Nothing we can do about it now. He's gone." Marik agreed silently with a nod of his head, pretty blonde hair sparkling in the light as he moved it. It was about the only part of him that wasn't dirty and grimy, even if there was some white dust still left in it.

They quietly left the second room they'd come to and once again entered a dark hallway. While the first hallway had been mysterious, this one was much more threatening after the disappearance of Otogi, despite it's being exactly the same as it's earlier counterpart. The same amount of darkness, dust, and cobwebs, and the same strange smell that lingered in the place. Nothing new except a tiny pile of some stray metal that almost tripped Bakura up. Yet things definitely seemed to be more menacing after what had just transpired.

When they reached the third room down the hallway, they were confronted with a similar situation to the first. The door locked behind them, trapping them in the darkness. The room they entered was pitch black but for the red glow of another digital clock. Then, like before, it was soon illuminated with the onslaught of several bright lights turning on all at once. As they were becoming accustomed to this, both males had their sensitive eyes already covered before they could be blinded once more.

When they opened them this time, there was again another male situated in a wooden chair in the middle of the room. The man this time had long, silvery hair somewhat similar to Bakura's own that covered a good half of his face. He was dressed in a glamorous red suit adorned with frills, making him look all sorts of out of place here. Much like how Otogi had appeared before he was devoured by the opening up of the floor, this man was very relaxed, like he was enjoying his stay in the funstacle course straight out of hell. Which seemed out of place to Bakura, but hey, to each their own.

"Hello~!" the man in the chair greeted gratuitously. The man screamed camp, and it made Bakura want to cringe. If Otogi's macho man attitude had been bad, this was only worse. What the hell was _with_ all of these obstacles? Were they actually supposed to _befriend_ these types of people?

Marik didn't seem to be as affected by the man's fruity style, for he was already reaching out to grab the small black tape held in the man's creamy hands.

"Ah ah, not so fast! I think first we deserved to be introduced, don't we?" the man questioned. Bakura growled and took a threatening step forward, intended to teach the guy who was boss here, but Marik's arm stopped him.

"I think it's against the rules if we kill him," he said, and Bakura was forced to cede that point to him. It also probably wouldn't look so good on a police record, which was what they were headed for if they didn't give this guy what he wanted, and soon.

"I'm Bakura, he's Marik," Bakura said shortly, pointing to Marik. They both smiled awkwardly.

"Ahh, Bakura-boy and Marik-boy! Nice to meet you!" the man said in English, which neither male understood, save for their names. "I am Pegasus J. Crawford, known world-wide for my toys! Perhaps you know of me?" Both males shook their head. Never heard the name before. But at least he was back to using Japanese now.

"Ahh well, I suppose there are still some barbarians who haven't. But you need this tape, don't you?" Both nodded. "Well here you are then," the man said, finally handing the damn thing over. Marik grabbed it greedily and shoved it into the tape recorder. He pressed play, and the familiar voice once again began to fill the room.

"Congratulations on making it to your second obstacle. Hopefully, you have Otogi with you."

Bakura looked at Marik, and neither of them said a word.

"Here you will find a man named Pegasus J. Crawford. He was once like the two of you, eager to accomplish his own goals at the cost of others. But he has recently seen the light of his ways, and has changed them. Your duty here is to learn about Pegasus's past and comfort him in any way that you possibly can."

The tape came to an end then, and both disappeared back into Marik's pocket.

"All right, so what's wrong with you?" Bakura questioned boredly. He honestly could care less about listening to this guy's problems, even if it did mean not getting thrown in jail. The only person he cared about was himself, and thus the only person who mattered to him was himself. He barely had enough time for his own problems, and now he was expected to help this fruit out? If this was what having friends were all about, than he was glad he'd chosen to not have any.

"Ahh, you see, my dear wife passed away about a year ago! I had been in love with her for such a long time, and at the pinnacle of our love for one another, she was oh so viciously ripped away from my grasp! I mourned her death for months. She was the most beautiful flower in my life, the reason for my existence~! How could she be taken away from me? I did not believe it could be true. So I buried myself in research and tried to find away to bring my love back to me," Pegasus explained dramatically. Bakura rolled his eyes.

"Well there's your problem right there," Marik pointed out. "If she died, there's no way you can bring her back. The dead stay dead. Nothing you can do to change that."

"But I had to try!" Pegasus exclaimed. "I loved her so much, and I could not _bear_ the thought of her wasting away in the ground."

"All right, all right, so what did you do about it?" Bakura questioned, eager to get to the point of this story so that they could do whatever it was that they needed to and head on to the next room. The way he saw things, they had a little less than half an hour to complete their task, and who knew how many more people they'd have to stop and help along the way?

"I tried everything I could," Pegasus continued. "I must have read over a million books on the subject! I traveled to different parts of the world that I thought could help me. I saw shamans and healers, voodoo experts and priests. I followed any little lead, and nothing came of it! I could not find a way to bring back my dear, beautiful wife."

"Told you," Marik said with a shrug.

"Okay, got it. So the dead broad stayed dead. Now what?" Bakura asked.

"Now nothing," Pegasus said, strangely subdued. His eyes looked sad, and even the frills of his outfit seemed to sag a bit. "My beautiful wife was dead. There was nothing more I could do. Even with all the money I had, nothing could bring her back to me." Bakura waited for the story to continue, but it looked like it had come to an end. He checked the clock hanging on the wall. They still had three minutes left to "comfort" Pegasus, or whatever it was they were supposed to be doing.

"Well say something to him," Bakura said, nudging Marik with his elbow. Marik turned to him and his violet eyes flashed angrily.

"Me? You say something to him!"

"I don't know how to comfort anyone!" Bakura argued.

"And you think I do?" Marik shot back incredulously. Both glared at each other, and when it became apparent that Marik was not going to budge, Bakura turned back toward Pegasus. He grit his teeth together and tried to force his voice to lose it's usual sardonic tone and actually sound like something that could be nice.

"We're… very sorry to hear about your loss," he ground out.

"Speak for yourself," Marik muttered from his side. Bakura sharply jabbed him again, making Marik cry out and then launch himself at Bakura and tackle him to the ground.

Suddenly there was a mess of blonde atop of him, and the cold cement floor below him, and Bakura had no clue how either had happened. All he was aware of was that his ribs, really, _really_ hurt, and the length of chain that had been between their arms was now pressed against his bare skin. His shirt had ridden up some when he fell, and the links of the chain were freezing cold against him, even more so than the floor itself.

"Get off me!" Bakura hissed.

"Stop being such an asshole then!" Marik said. He was sitting atop Bakura, almost in a position to be straddling him. Perhaps he would have been had the situation that led them to this position been different, Bakura thought wryly, and then hissed as the chain moved further up his torso and began to tighten.

"I wasn't!" he spat out. "I was _trying_ to comfort him, like we're _supposed_ to be doing! _You_ were the one who couldn't just keep your mouth closed!"

"At least I wasn't _lying_ to him! Even an idiot could have told you weren't sincere!"

In the midst of their argument, the red digital clock on the wall ran out of numbers and began flashing four red zeros, indicating the end of the challenge. Much like with Otogi, leather straps darted out of the chair and wrapped themselves around Pegasus, just in time for the floor to open up underneath him and take him away. Neither fighting male noticed his, though Bakura did feel what felt like the floor giving way under his right foot. He didn't think much of it, as in a few moment it was back to normal, and there was after all, another human being still on top of him. Plus that chain was getting mighty tight, and although the warmth of his skin had started to warm it up, it was still very uncomfortable.

"Ow!" Marik cried out abruptly. This struck Bakura as a bit odd, as if anyone should be complaining, it was him. He was the one _still_ on the floor, feeling his ribs get crushed.

"What's your problem now?" he questioned irritantly.

"The stupid chain is—ow!—wrapped around my wrist!" Marik tried lifting up the enchained wrist to show him, but all that did was pull it tighter. Somehow in the fall and subsequent struggle that occurred afterwards, the chain had managed to rope itself around Bakura's waist and Marik's wrist. Even if Marik had wanted to get off Bakura, the chain wouldn't have allowed it.

"This is so stupid. Why do we even have to be chained together anyways? It's not like we're going to get out of here and leave the other," Marik muttered under his breath.

"No doubt it's another thing to help foster friendship between us. Now hold still while I get the damn thing off," Bakura ordered. Because both of his hands were still free, it was a lot easier for him to move around and untangle themselves from this mess. He started first with the chair around Marik's wrist, and tried to pull as much excess as he could away from himself. This caused it to tighten around his own waist, but in the end he did manage to get it off Marik. From that point, Marik was able to get off of him and they could stand up. One they did, Marik walked around him and uncircled the chain from his waist.

"Great, it left a bruise," Marik remarked sourly.

"Well then now we match," Bakura said, indicating the red raised skin around his own waist in the form of chain links. Marik didn't seem to care much for it, and he continued to make faces at the own bruise that was forming on his wrist. Bakura sighed.

"Relax," he said, putting an arm around Marik's shoulders. "It doesn't ruin your good looks. You'll still be able to seduce all the pretty young men." Marik burned hotly and stepped out of his grasp.

"For the last time, I do _not_ like men!" he insisted. Bakura laughed.

"Sure, just like he isn't the fruitiest man alive—"

At this point, both males noticed for the first time that Pegasus, friend number two, was indeed gone. And that could only mean that he had also been devoured, and that they had failed yet another task. Conversation died at that point and they both started walking again, knowing that they had to get out of this place before time ran out, and that they could not let anything distract them from helping out their next "friend."

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><p>Yay Saw! I thought of the idea for this while walking home from work, and it was the most glorious thing ever, so I just had to do it. So like I said, this chapter is only half complete. I just could not get the other half written, and I'm sorry for that. Sooo much stuff I need to do. Which brings me to my next point.<p>

This fanfic and all others I write will be going on hiatus until the month of December. November is one hell of a busy month for me. There's my birthday, Thanksgiving, and NaNoWriMo. Most importantly, NaNoWriMo. Basically, if you don't know what it is, I will be writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. That's about 1,667 words per day. Given that I will also be working and having to deal with my usual amount of school work on top of that, I really won't have time for this fanfic. So I'm shutting it down until December. Last year I tried doing NaNo and didn't quite succeed, so even though I'm much busier this year, I'm hoping I'll be able to do it. Wish me luck! (Anyone else doing it here? We should totes be writing buddies.)

One more thing. I'm thinking about creating a blog. I've never really gotten the appeal of them myself, because I can't see myself as being interesting enough that people would actually want to know what I'm doing, writing-wise at least, but I figured it would be a kind of cool way to talk abut my fanfics and original fiction. not that I have any idea of whether or not I'll be able to do a blog during November when I'll be concentrating on my original fiction most, but hey, no sense in not trying. So wondering then if anyone would actually be interested in it, or if Devon should just say screw it and that she doesn't need one. If I do decide to make one, I'll put the link on my profile once I get it up and running. Then everyone can see my nerdiness up close, yaaaayy.

Okay, so that's it! I will see you all again in December! Until then, hopefully this will keep you satisfied! Please remember to review! Thanks!


	17. 7:45, We're Drivin' On The Highway

Hi people. Some things to say here before we get to the chapter.

First, sorry for the huge wait. I was AWOL for all of November, and then I kind of have no excuse for the rest of the time. Over winter break I wanted to write, but never really felt like it. Instead, I got into Homestuck. Now normally I manage to stay away from things that are super popular and big, because they wind up annoying me. However, a friend of mine is really into Homestuck and digs all the trolls and talks about them a lot. So I eventually wound up searching out which troll corresponded with my astrological sign (Vriska hell yeah!) and saw that it looked really interesting, and yeah... That happened. New obsession. I love all the characters, but in particular I adore the Striders in any and all forms. And Bro. Gods. Bro. Sooooo much. That's all there really is to say about that.

Second thing I have to apologize for is this chapter in general. I really don't like it. It's just... not good. At all. If I didn't feel like I needed to actually get something online I wouldn't have even bothered putting this crap up where everyone can see. Like, it had a plot, sort of, and then as I wrote it it just kind of... escaped from me? I don't really know what went wrong, but it went wrong, and I don't like this at all. So sorry for the subpar writing, and the next chapter will be better, I promise. I hope to get back on track with the once a week updates, but I am super busy this semester, so we'll see about that. Other than that, try to enjoy if possible, and hopefully there will be something better soon!

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or the song "Friday."

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><p>Chapter Seventeen: 7:45, We're Drivin' On The Highway<p>

"Will you let me go already? I'm obviously not a jewel or a painting! You're not going to make any money off of me!"

"Mmm, I'm sure you're worth something."

Marik seethed. He was in a nondescript black car, hurtling down the highway at breakneck speeds. It was getting to be late, and he was dressed up for a night spent clubbing. All in all, it had been a fairly good day, and he'd been expecting tonight to make it that much better. But all that was before the most idiotic thief he'd ever met had forcibly kidnapped him, along with several of his father's most expensive possessions. Goodbye, grand expectations. Hello night from hell.

All of the windows were open in the car, including the sunroof. Marik's glamorous golden jewelry clanged together noisily, both from the movements of the car and the frigid wind blowing inside of it, and from the shivering that Marik's own body was producing. He glared venomously at the man driving said vehicle, but the driver kept his eyes glued to the road in heedless ignorance. It was that particular attitude that was pissing Marik off even more than the kidnapping. First, the guy had the nerve to break into his parent's house before it even grew dark! Then, he had decided to not only steal his late mother's jewelry, but had broken into his father's personal safe, stolen all of the precious, one-of-a-kind artwork their family had accumulated over the years, and to top it all off, taken Marik himself! And while that infuriated Marik to no end, it was that attitude—that attitude!—that really took the cake. This thief—this amateur thief—had not only dared to break into the house of one of the wealthiest families in the nation, steal from them _and_ kidnap their only son, but didn't even look fazed by it! He was completely ignoring everything and anything that Marik said to him, be it curses or promises of money in exchange for his safe return, and the prick didn't even bat an eyelash. That type of holier-than-thou attitude pissed him off to no end. If Marik didn't know any better, he would have thought the guy wasn't even paying attention to his driving.

But as the son and heir to the fortune of a very wealthy family, Marik did know better, a lot better, and he was not done in by the thief's ploy of ignorance. Despite his disregard for the conventional laws of criminal activity, the guy had certainly known what he was doing by breaking into Marik's father's house. The fact that he had not waited for nightfall to put his plan into action said something about his skill, and that he'd actually been able to get into the mansion said something more. On top of that, the guy was an excellent driver. He was currently outracing the entirety of the Domino police squad.

"They're going to catch you," Marik said nonchalantly.

"You think so?" the man asked. He seemed just as sure of himself as Marik did. Inwardly, Marik seethed, but upon his face he placed the most acidic of all his expressions. He sprawled languidly out in the car. It was still freezing because of the windows, but like hell was he going to act like some uppity little bitch. Once his father finally croaked he would be in a huge position of power. This probably wouldn't be the last time someone kidnapped him or put his life in danger because of the prestige that came along with his name.

"You've got every single cop in the city out looking to catch you. You might be ahead of them all right now, but there's no way that luck of yours is going to remain. You'll make a mistake along the way and butcher whatever infantile plan you've concocted in that imbecilic head of yours," Marik concluded simply.

"You think so?" the man repeated again. Marik's hands balled into fists and he wondered if it would be quicker and safer to just sock the guy and escape himself, or just wait for the police to finally come around.

"Look, I'm sick of this shit," Marik said, deciding, once again, to attempt talking the thief out of his mistake. He'd already tried doing so several times during this insane car ride, but so far all his attempts had been for naught. That wasn't going to stop him from trying, oh no. He saw this as a challenge. This stubborn asshole was exactly the same as the type of people his father always came home and bitched about at work. If Marik could get this guy to listen to him, he could win over anyone.

"I've got things I wanted to do tonight, and you've obviously got your hands full with all the crap you stole from my house. You let me out here and when the police finally catch up and pick me up, I'll point out to them some bogus direction I supposedly saw you speed off in. I'd take it if I were you. It's probably the only chance you've got to get away with everything," Marik said. He kept his voice especially calm and controlled as he talked. Things were totally cool between them. Totally. Cool.

"You have absolutely no idea who I am, do you?" the man questioned, completely disregarding Marik's suggestion. He laughed when Marik let slip an irritated snarl, and the blonde once more found himself wondering if violence was the answer here.

"You rich bastards never know anything. Unless it's concerning your own asses, because then of course you're all over the place," the man said.

"Shut the hell up. You don't know anything about me or my family," Marik argued.

"Oh no? Bet I know a hell of a lot more about you than you do about me. I always research my victims thoroughly before setting out to steal from them." When Marik did not say anything, the driver took it upon himself to continue with his ludicrous claim.

"Since you are my captive audience today, I'll start first with you. Your name is Marik Ishtar and you're finishing up your last year of school. You plan on going to the same college our father went to, but that's not what interests you. What you're really looking forward to is getting to work together with your old man and learning how to run the company. You hate him so you want to get the training period over and done with as soon as you can. And after that you plan on taking the company away from him. Am I right so far?"

Marik tried as hard as he could to keep his face completely impassive and not let his kidnapper know that he was even the slightest bit impressed. It was pretty easy to do, because for the most part he was just pissed that once again the asshole was acting like he was in charge.

"I didn't really expect you to be there when I broke in, but it looks like that miscalculation didn't really matter, did it? Your father was at his office, just like I knew he would be. He really only comes back to that expensive house he bought to sleep there at night, and even then he sometimes doesn't bother. I knew I wouldn't have to deal with him. It's also quite lucky that he's paranoid. If he wasn't, I might have had to waste precious time evading a number of servants. Electronic devices are much easier to disable, and they don't cause nearly as many problems," the thief continued on. He was smiling as he drove and recalled the event of his thievery. If he hadn't been such a complete asshat, Marik might have thought he looked good. Nice, almost. But he was an asshat, and so all Marik was cognizant of thinking was that it sure would be nice to seriously hit the guy.

"That left you as the only obstacle to overcome. There were some bodyguards keeping watch outside the mansion of course, but they were all too easy to best. It's a bit strange to me that your father would buy such a big house for only one person to live in, but then he and I don't seem to be crazy in quite the same way. And whom else does he have to live there? He ran your adopted brother out of town years ago, and neither he nor you have heard from him since. He doesn't care much, but every once in a while you would like to hear what he's up to, and how he's been doing. As for a mother, well she's dead. She died giving birth to you. And even if she hadn't, I doubt she'd still want to live in that place. She was a nice woman from what I hear, way to good for both you and your father."

"That's enough," Marik said. The driver looked over at him briefly and also concluded that it was. Marik looked out his own window for a bit. He thought he might have seen some snow. It was fucking freezing. He wished the asshole would close the windows. He wished the asshole hadn't even decided to bring him along.

"All right, so it looks like you do know quite a bit about me and my family."

"And you don't know anything about me," the thief finished. Marik remained silent and he flashed a mocking smile. "Knew it. The news has been reporting about me all week, but there are still some fools out there who think themselves impenetrable. Both you and your father must not bother with the concerns of those underneath you."

"Just cut the crap already and tell me who you are. I don't want to hear about how great you are, and how anyone who has money in life must be a douche. None of that shit is news to me anymore, and frankly, I'm sick of this conversation," Marik uttered acidly.

"All you had to do was ask," the thief said with a conniving smirk. He leaned back in his seat as postured as best he could while still keeping both hands on the steering wheel.

"You should be honored you know. Most people only dream of being in your position." Marik scoffed and rolled his eyes at this, but he let the man finish. It was bothering him after all; still not knowing whom this guy thought he was, taking people like this.

"How can I think myself lucky to be in this position when my captor can't even get to the point?" he retorted. The thief ignored him.

"The cops and those on the streets know me only as 'Thief King.' But since you and I seem to be getting so cozy, I'll let you call me something a little less formal. I like to go by Bakura."

"You 'like to go by', huh?" Marik asked, a suspicious eyebrow raised. "That's a big leap from saying 'My name is'. You lying to me now as well?"

"What, you mean we were supposed to be helpful to one another al this time?" the thief called Bakura asked. His eyes flashed from the road for a split second—long enough to give Marik an utterly conniving smirk—and then there were once more glued to the quickly passing road. "It sounds like I've been reading the rules to this little game all wrong then. I apologize; how about I just escort you back to your mansion, give all those precious little paintings I stole back to daddy, and then hand myself quietly over to the police?"

"Sarcasm will get you nowhere," Marik muttered sourly, turning his own gaze back to the passenger side window. The sounds of sirens were a bit closer now than before, but the police were still no match for Bakura's top-notch driving. When he finally got out of this mess he was going to make sure his father had something to say about the force's driving skills. What did they bother teaching at that fancy cop academy if not something so simple as how to catch up in a high-speed chase?

"Will you just let me go already? This is seriously annoying! I don't have time for some crappy kidnapping attempt!" Marik finally yelled after a moment's stretch of silence. He'd always thought, having to deal with his father all the time, that he had a large amount of patience. This night was sorely testing his reservoirs. And it had only been going on for about an hour.

"'Attempt'? I though I'd succeeded," Bakura responded, annoyingly cocky. That was the last straw that broke the camel's back. Marik snapped. In a second his face became a fearsome, ugly thing, and he grabbed the steering wheel with no regard for how fast they were traveling or the cars they were flying past on the hallway.

Bakura made a breathless sound of surprise and quickly attempted to regain control of the vehicle that was rapidly moving out of control. He cursed at Marik and tried to push him away from the wheel, but Marik had none of it. His eyes were the eyes of a man possessed, and he was having none of anything Bakura was saying, not anymore. He was tired of being ignored and casually dismissed, like he was some regular person, like he wasn't worthy of the status he held in life. His father had always dealt with him in the same way, and he would be damned if now, when he was finally old enough to do things for himself, he was going to let some random thief who thought he could rise up from the shit he normally associated with treat him in the same manner. It was about time he took matters into his own hands.

The getaway car swerved haphazardly over the pavement of the highway. Cars that had not yet been weary of the movements of the fast-speeding car quickly got the memo and moved out of its path, lest they be hit. As it was, with both males in the car fighting over the wheel, they almost did hit something several times. Both were attempting to keep their vehicle in one piece along with themselves, but it was more difficult that either of them thought when they had to deal with the abrupt movements of the car as well as punches and insults coming from the both of them.

The car swung dangerously to the left, and then just as far to the right. However, unlike with the previous arc of movement, this time the vehicle was not left unfazed. The car slammed so hard against the shoulder of the highway that sparks flew as metal fought against metal. The force of the crash knocked both male's into the driver's seat. Both released their grip on the wheel and the car continued forward. Something broke somewhere, and the impact as the car drove over it popped a wheel and shook the two on the inside.

Any control that had been wrested over the runaway vehicle dissipated quickly. It soared to the left again and hit the railing of the highway so hard that it removed the car from the street beneath it. The set of wheels on the right side lifted up and hovered dangerously in the air. They did not come back down. The car continued to skid on its side until its momentum died out and it no longer could. It stood wearily on its side for several stretched-out seconds, then fell back to all fours with a metallic groan.

Marik's vision swam before his eyes. He didn't know what had happened. He didn't know what happened, and that scared him. He knew that there had been an accident because he remembered that, but he didn't know what had happened _during_ the accident. He remembered moving and being thrown about, and he remembered seeing fire along all sides of the car. But that was it. He didn't remember any sound, and he didn't remember any pain, and the lack of both of those startled him. He'd never seen a car accident in anything but movies, but there was always screaming. And pain. People got hurt in car accidents. They got hurt badly. Unless they had died. That thought alone scared Marik so much that he immediately made to move, or scream, or something—anything—to prove that he was still alive, still here, potential injuries be damned.

He couldn't move. He felt the twinge of what would turn into an immense pain beginning, but he could not move. The pain was gratefully accepted, but the lack of movement did nothing to ease Marik's nerves. He was alive, but now he was plagued with terrifying visions of wheelchairs and the permanent paralysis. It took him some time to figure out that his lack of movement was not due to some problem with his body, but rather with the body strewn out atop him.

Bakura was on top of him. The warmth Marik felt was from Bakura's body, and whatever part of his own that was bleeding. Marik paused for a moment to gather his senses and try to calm himself. He took a deep breath and released. Then he took another, and another. He tried to calmly move himself as much as he could. Now that he wasn't panicking as he had been before, he found the task easier to achieve. The weight of the other male was not completely on him, and Bakura was not as heavy as he had initially assumed.

He didn't get very far into the chore. He'd managed to free one of his legs, at the expanse of a shooting pain running up it, before Bakura stirred. Although Marik had gone this entire trip hating the other male's guts, the sound of his groans relieved him greatly.

"Wha… happened?" Bakura questioned drearily. He sounded like he was half sleep and barely aware of what was going on, but this didn't worry Marik as much as it should have. He was alive. He was alive and that was good enough.

Trying to not let anything show in his voice, Marik shifted as much as his aching body would allow Bakura move off him. He set his face in a scowl and it hurt, but he didn't want to let his captor know his real feelings here.

"You got us into a car accident, asshat," Marik scolded as harshly as he could. Which wasn't even all that harsh, considering the circumstances. It sounded more like a faint complaint, covered up by the trembling of his voice. He hoped that Bakura didn't hear it and was in luck. It seemed like the thief was too preoccupied with gazing around the wreckage to really pay him any mind.

"An accident…" Marik couldn't tell if the other was as shocked as him over the turn of events, or if he was just viewing it all as some strange problem that he hadn't had the time to deal with yet.

"Yeah. Some driver you are," Marik replied. Bakura still didn't seem to be paying him any mind. His eyes were foggy and unfocused. Marik didn't know if that was something he should be concerned about. Bakura had seemed mostly like himself when he first woke up. It was only now that he was acting strangely.

"Hey," Marik said, hoping for some kind of response. He didn't get one. He frowned and ignored the aching protest of his body as he slid himself over mangled metal and broken glass to get closer to Bakura. He managed this and raised a bloodied hand to wave it around in front of the other's face. "Hey! I'm trying to talk to you here!"

"Shh!" Bakura hushed. He still wasn't looking at Marik, but the tone of his voice dispelled his worries a bit. Marik did as asked and quieted himself. It took him a while, but eventually he too began to hear what Bakura already had. It was the sound of sirens. He couldn't remember having heard them when the car first started going out of control, but then he hadn't been paying much attention to anything at that point. The sirens were approaching now though, and quickly by the sound of it. Either way had once again found Bakura's trail, or someone had called an ambulance. Both options meant that Marik would soon be out of this horrible situation. The thought alone was almost enough to break a smile free, despite the pain doing it caused. His entire body felt tenderized.

"We've got to go," Bakura said. And then surprisingly, abruptly, he grabbed Marik by a hand and _pulled_.

Marik hissed sharply through clenched teeth and quickly snatched his hand away. "What do you think you're _doing_? I'm not going anywhere, dammit!"

"The cops are coming!" Bakura said, like Marik still hadn't caught onto that fact for himself.

"I know! And that's precisely why I'm staying put! We're lucky to still be alive after that! I'm not going anywhere with you! I'm going to a hospital to make sure my body is still working correctly and then I'm going home!"

Bakura growled and grabbed onto Marik's hand again and pulled, more urgently this time. The sirens were growing louder. Marik fought against this, but he wasn't at his strongest after everything that had happened. He'd gotten the unseemly trembling of his voice under control, but there was still something to be said about the rest of his body. Had he not just been in an almost fatal accident, he did not doubt that he would have been able to easily push Bakura off. But he had been, and so he could not.

There wasn't much space to maneuver around in the car. There hadn't been even before it had wrecked. Now with the frame of it so twisted it barely resembled what it had once been, it was nearly impossible to get anywhere. Bakura managed. The car was flipped onto its left side, but it was not perpendicular to the street. Rather, it leaned somewhat against the shoulder of the highway, which left a small opening in the window which a person could fit through, though not without some difficulty. Bakura pulled and tugged Marik to this opening, ignoring the numerous cuts he gained in the process as he climbed over broken glass. Marik persisted against this, though perhaps not as much about halfway to the window. He realized that even if he did not want to go with Bakura, it was still imperative to leave the car. It wasn't exactly the safest place to be anymore.

Glass cut into the meat of his palms as he crawled forward. Marik winced, but the fresh pain wasn't even all that bad. Not compared to the rest of him. He was whole and he could move, but he did not want to know what he looked like when he could again stand. He hurt everywhere, and his clothes were sticky from various fluids, both from him, Bakura, and the car. There were so many stains everywhere on him he couldn't even tell where it was he was actually injured.

When he finally got out from beneath the deathtrap, Marik initially looked at the car. It was totaled. It looked less like something that could actually move than a heap of discarded junk some asshole had left in the middle of the road. Pieces of it were strewn out on the street behind them, some of them flaming. Several other cars were parked back there as well, though no one had been curious enough to venture out of their cars, as of yet.

The second thing Marik took notice of was his own condition. It was dishearteningly apparent that his outfit was ruined. As were his hands, for that matter. He found that he had a rather large gash in his right leg that was so gruesome looking at it for too long made him sway and feel lightheaded. The rest of him was banged up, but all right. He would be black and blue in just under an hour, he was sure. One of his ribs hurt an awful lot as well, though he didn't know if that pain meant it was broken, or just sorely mistreated. He wasn't a doctor, and it was hard to tell when there was just so much pain.

The third and last thing Marik deemed important enough to pay attention to was Bakura himself. He regretted this decision at the same time his eyes finally made contact with the other male. He should have been looking at Bakura first. It hadn't been obvious when they'd still been trapped in the car, but out here in the open, it was blaringly clear that Bakura was fucked, and fucked badly. If Marik ahd thought he'd felt light-headed when he'd glimpsed at his own injury, it was nothing compared to how the world swooned beneath him when he looked at Bakura's.

Bakura's pale blue shirt had been drenched in blood on his left side. This by itself wasn't so bad. Marik too was covered in the substance. But Bakura's shirt was not only soaking with it, but had something sticking out of it as well. Something Marik hoped that he wasn't really seeing, but the more he started, the more it became clear to him that he was. There was a chunk of metal stinking out of Bakura. It wasn't a big chunk, but it was in there good, and it was bleeding heavily.

He looked quickly up at Bakura. Did Bakura know it was there? Did he know? It seemed absurd to think that he didn't, but nothing about the thief suggested to Marik the unbearable pain he knew he had to be going through. His face was pale, but then it had been pale to begin with. He too was shaking, but that also wasn't anything to go off of. Marik himself was shaking. They were in shock, both of them, surely.

"Bakura I—you!" He didn't know what he was trying to say. His eyes moved wildly from Bakura's tired face to the jutting shard of metal, trying to form the words, trying to get his mind across the fact that this could even be possible.

"I know," Bakura snapped. Or tried to. To Marik it sounded like he was screaming in pain. "Now come on. We don't have time to deal with this. They could be here any minute."

Bakura's hand was still in his own. He was pulling, pulling Marik away from the sirens.

"No!" Marik said. The idea was ludicrous! "Don't you even see that?" Bakura had to have missed it somehow. _Had_ to have. There was no way, _no way!_, that he could still be trying to move with an injury that bad.

"Come _on!_" Bakura yelled. His eyes flashed with ire. "I haven't gotten this far in my life to get caught now because of some silly injury and a pansy who wants to keep fighting me. Now let's get going."

"I'm not going anywhere," Marik said. He did not say this in the same obstinate tone as his earlier words. The words coming from his mouth sounded more like those of a man surprised by his own thoughts. And Marik was surprised. Not because he did not want to go, for he had never wanted to go, but because he wasn't completely concerned about solely his own life now.

Bakura seemed to miss all of this. His eyes narrowed and hardened, and for the first time since he had kidnapped Marik he looked like the great thief king he proclaimed to be, and not a jokester ready for some fun. He still had some surprises up his sleeves as well, or in this case, his pocket. Marik watched him slowly lower a hand into one of his back pockets without any idea that he would pull out a gun. If he'd had any inclination that this would be his captor's next course of action, he would have attempted running.

"No, I don't think so, Marik. You're coming with me. Those cops will be here soon, and I may need a hostage. You turn around now and I shoot you in the back without another warning. Now let's go."

Marik carefully listened to the words, trying to gauge how serious Bakura was here. His father often liked to threaten to get his way, and Marik had grown quite adept at detecting lies because of it. In Bakura's case, he was fairly certain that the other was not joking. He would seriously shoot if Marik did not move, and now.

"Okay. I'll go," Marik said carefully, eyes still on Bakura, voice calm. His concentration was not on the gun. Of course he acknowledged its part here, but he kept his focus on Bakura himself.

"Get up front. Start moving. You do anything against what I say and I'll kill you," Bakura ordered, gesturing a bit with the gun. Marik nodded slowly and took a place up in front of Bakura. They began to walk.

Bakura wasn't bluffing when he said he would shoot him, but that didn't worry Marik. The situation was bad regardless of it. Bakura did not look good. The hand not pointing the gun at Marik's back was busy holding his bloodied shirt close to his body. Of course Marik could not see him anymore now, but in their short conversation Bakura had moved his hand closer to his injury and then flinched away from it six times. He was all too cognizant of it, and it was a lie saying otherwise. It didn't seem to be affecting him much just yet, aside from no doubt hurting like a bitch, but Bakura did seem like he was putting a little more effort into all of his actions, like he couldn't concentrate well. Marik could only hope that this meant his was close to passing out from blood loss, and not the alternative.

"So where are we headed to?" Marik questioned.

"Did I say you could talk?" Bakura snarled. Marik strained his ears, but he could deduce nothing of Bakura's condition from just his voice. At least he was still being a giant asshole. That had to be a good sign, right?

"Well you didn't, but I thought it would be good of me to know where exactly it was I'm meant to be marching to," Marik replied. Had Bakura been able to see him, he would have learned that even concern and worry could not dampen Marik's natural snarkiness.

"To those ships over there," Bakura said. There was a small hiss of pain at the end of his sentence, and Marik presumed that once again he had touched his injury. He ignored that nagging feeling of worry tugging at his innards and fixed his gaze to the right. He hadn't really been paying attention earlier, but Bakura had been driving them alongside the ocean. Marik had been too busy fuming and arguing to even smell the salt of it and hear the crash of the waves.

There were nearing what looked like a fairly well sized port, and it was to these ships that Bakura had them headed. None of them were large, glamorous things, but a few did manage to look impressive in comparison to the smaller, personal boats. Marik wondered if this was where they'd been heading to to begin with, or if Bakura was making things up as he went. He didn't know which choice he preferred.

Though he wanted to keep talking to have an idea of how Bakura was doing, Marik could think of nothing else to say. It was one thing arguing with him in the car and trying to escape. It was quite another thing being held hostage with a gun pointed at his back whilst experiencing the beginnings of a pesky feeling of camaraderie, of all things. All he could do was continue moving on in the direction Bakura wanted him.

When they got to the port Bakura took lead. He had the gun down at his side, but he again told Marik that he would shoot if he tried doing something foolish like running or attracting any attention to the two of them. Marik nodded. He wasn't very concerned about the gun or being shot anymore. Bakura looked much worse, and somehow, that fact was taking up most of his mind. He was worried, genuinely worried about another person, and his captor at that. It didn't make any sense and Marik didn't even try figuring it out. He needed to keep his mind focused on what was happening here, and not how fucked up his mind was deciding to be. Maybe it was still the shock affecting him.

Even with Bakura as injured and mostly out of commission as he was, he was still a damn good thief. He managed to easily maneuver the two of them past the rather poor force watching over the docked boats and onto one of the larger vessels. They headed down to the lowest level of the ship. It looked like this particular one was some sort of storage freighter. There were boxes upon boxes stacked high all around them.

"So now what?" Marik questioned, just a bit sarcastically. Had Bakura been at his best, he would no doubt have had something to say in response to that, but now he was just slumped against one of the crates, breathing hard. He opened one chocolate eye and sliver and tried to sneer at Marik, but the expression didn't come out so well.

"What, you think I haven't got a plan? This was my way out of here all along. I know exactly what I'm doing, so just shut up and find somewhere to stay. It's going to be a long ride," Bakura answered.

"A long ride to where?"

"You think I'd tell you?" Bakura snorted softly. His eye closed again and he slumped more against the crate. He was more on the floor than off it. The gun was nowhere to be seen. Marik dared to take a few steps forward.

"You need medical attention," he said. "I don't know where you're planning on going and what you're planning on doing, but you'll die if you don't get help."

"I'll be fine," the thief mumbled in response to that. Marik scoffed.

"Oh yes, you're the very definition of fine. Can you even stand?"

"'Course I can," Bakura replied. Marik eyed him expectantly, but the other male didn't even attempt to prove himself. Rather, he slid completely to the floor. His face screwed up in pain and his hand clenched convulsively around his wound. Marik got closer to him. He bent down to Bakura's level and took a hold of the other's clammy hand and moved it away. Bakura didn't even attempt to stop him or return the appendage to its earlier position.

"You're going to die," Marik announced. His voice was calm and steady, but inwardly he did feel a slight amount of panic at this thought. He was no doctor, but even he knew a fatal injury when he saw one, and with how much this one was still bleeding, Bakura would be dead within the hour if he didn't get help immediately.

Bakura mumbled something inaudible and slumped forward. His head came to rest against Marik's shoulder, causing the blonde to wince at a bit of pain he hadn't been aware of there. For a second he was worried that Bakura had died right then and there, but then become mindful of the soft exhalations blowing against the skin of his neck.

"I'm leaving," he said. He didn't know if Bakura could hear him, but he assumed not. If he was able to, he guessed he'd find out when he was no doubt shot for not listening. "I'm going to let the police know where we are, or call an ambulance, or something. I'm not going to sit here on some random ass ship and watch you die."

"Mmm… on't go," Bakura mumbled softly.

"I'll be back with help. I promise," Marik said. His face scrunched up when he said the words. They felt strange on his tongue. The last promise he had ever given was to his brother before he left to go who knew where, and he could not remember the words ever having been spoken before then. Tying himself down with promises was not something Marik did. It was not something any successful businessman did, or at least not ones that they meant to honor.

"'ll arres me," Bakura said. Marik frowned and tried to decipher the half-conscious mumblings. When he did his eyes widened a bit. That was something he hadn't exactly thought of. For another reason he wasn't quite sure of, he didn't want Bakura arrested. Maybe it was because all in all, though he'd been kidnapped and in a car accident and held hostage, it had still been _interesting_. He'd bitched and whined and complained the entire time, and he still wished the night hadn't gone this way, but it had and it beat hanging at some lame club and getting hit on by drunk partiers. Maybe it was also because having a thief king in his debt when he took over his father's company wouldn't be such a bad thing. He wasn't quite sure which reason he liked better, or which he felt more comfortable to admitting to.

"They won't arrest you. I won't let them," Marik said. Bakura made a hacking noise that might have been laughter. Marik frowned but kept his voice steady.

"They won't. It won't matter how many people you've stolen from. What will matter is who my father is, and what I have to say on the matter. Now, I'm going to get the cops. I'll be back. In the meantime, just try not to die," Marik said. Bakura made another noncommittal noise that Marik took to read as approval. He leaned the injured male back against the crates as gingerly as he could, and then hurried out of the ship.

Outside, police sirens could be heard everywhere. They had apparently tracked the two of them down to the port, and now cops were crawling all around the place, searching for the two of them. They spotted Marik almost immediately when he came out of the ship.

From then on, things happened faster even than the car accident had occurred. The police surrounded Marik long enough to hear that Bakura was still inside, and then called an ambulance for the two of them. He was then taken to the nearest hospital and given some sort of medication that knocked him out. He remembered being asked several times what had happened and explaining that nothing really had, that Bakura was his friend and had come to his house and together, as a prank, the two of them had taken some of his family's valuables and then sped away and got into an accident. No, Bakura was not a thief. No, he was not to be arrested, and if he was, well there would be hell to pay for whomever had done it.

He remained in the hospital for a few days. His father came to visit once. It was a short, terse visit. His father had stared at him lying small and pathetic in the big hospital bed for all of five disapproving minutes before disappearing and not showing up again. He hadn't seemed angry or concerned or anything like that. Really, the only point of the visit was no doubt due to some familial obligation, and a chance at belittlement. Though he was used to such encounters, it may have angered Marik were he not so curious over what had happened to Bakura. Several times he asked the staff, but he was never given a straight answer by any of them. Some said that Bakura was fine and had already left, others said it would still be a few days, and still others said that he was in bad condition, that things were still touch and go and he might not make it at all.

Finally the day came for Marik to leave the hospital, and he did so still without knowing what had became of his partner in crime. In fact, he did not hear anything about Bakura for all of three weeks. He called the hospital the very next day after his release and was given the runaround. He even visited once and was told that there was no patient by the name of "Bakura" in the records. In the news and on the internet there were reports about that night and the accident, but they were all purposely vague and left out a lot of facts. He could only assume that this was a good thing. If Bakura had been arrested after all, the details of it would have no doubt been everywhere. The great "Thief King" subdued at last.

Marik found the note late at night, when he was getting ready to climb into bed. It was just a small slip of paper held by a corner under his windowsill. He only noticed it because it looked like it was about to rain outside, and he was positive he had left the window open. Marik opened it and snatched the piece of paper up before the wind could blow it away. He leaned his head outside and looked around but didn't see anyone or anything out of the ordinary. He half expected to be confronted with Bakura himself, for he knew almost right away that this was from him. It just seemed like a stunt the asshole would pull.

The note was short and to the point.

"Pulling another 'prank' soon. You in?"

Marik found himself smirking as he read it over again. Bakura was referring to what he'd told the cops. That meant that not only had he been able to influence them and keep Bakura from facing jail time, but the thief himself knew it too. That made his ego swell just a bit, and without thinking about what he was doing, he grabbed a pen and scrawled down the answer "Yes" on the other side. He put the note back where he'd found it and climbed into bed and went to sleep.

In the morning he wasn't all that surprised to find another note had taken the firsts place. It detailed a time and area to meet up at in two day's time. Marik grinned whenever he thought about it for the rest of the day.

He didn't really know what he was expecting to get out of this partnership, or how his father would view it all if he ever found out, but he didn't really care. He didn't want to think about what he was doing too much, or he had a feeling that would ruin it all. This was fun and spontaneous, and maybe he'd come to like being in the same business as the great Thief King himself. So when it finally came time for him to meet up with Bakura again, Marik went without a moment's hesitation. He kind of missed the asshole anyways.

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><p>Ta-da, end. Yeah I don't even. Anyways, as always, please remember to review and thank you. I'll hopefully see you all again soon.<p> 


	18. Cruisin' So Fast, I Want Time To Fly

Ta-da OMG chapter! This took so much longer than I wanted it to. I think it's safe to say I got just a bit carried away with this one. It is huge. Be grateful. Like I'd had this prompt idea all the way last semester when I was taking Developmental Psychology and thought it would be fun to write about the development of a human being based on what I'd learned. Yeah there wound up not being so much psychology in this. It just became monstrous all on its own. Honestly, I probably could have written an entire friggen multi-chaptered fanfic based on this and the little side-story ideas I thought of. I would love to do so, but ugh, right now the idea is a little too much. I am way too busy in my life. But so yeah, great chapter for everyone, totally makes up for the last one!

Crap, forgot to mention when I first put this online, this chapter has mentionings of Puzzleshipping and Deathshipping in addition to Thief.

**Disclaimer:** I am way too poor to own Yu-Gi-Oh or the song "Friday."

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><p>Chapter Eighteen: Cruisin' So Fast, I Want Time To Fly<p>

There was a knock at the door.

This was wrong for all of two reasons. First, _no one_ ever knocked at the door. Even the mailman didn't want to visit the house of the two psychopaths when he had to leave a package for them. He usually got a few quivering steps up the driveway, then dropped the box and hightailed it out of there. Second, it was eight in the morning. Eight in the fucking morning and _no one ever knocked at their door!_

Bakura rolled onto his side and tried to ignore the persistent knocking. When that didn't work, he lifted his pillow up and slammed it over his head. Unfortunately, he could still hear the sound, and the executor of it all didn't seem to be getting the hint and going away. Bakura lifted his head up from the pillow and kicked the other body lying across from him in bed. Said body mumbled something that sounded like "not the chicken" and then snuggled down deeper into the bed and did not get up. Bakura kicked him again and was met with the same results. Of course. Of—_fucking!_—course. The only time Marik ever got out of bed was when he dragged his own ass from it.

Growling and mumbling quite loudly to himself (not that the noises disturbed Marik any), Bakura eventually made his way to the door where the current most bane of his existence was standing there and insistently knocking on it. He wrenched it open with a terrifying growl/snarl of "_What?_" that sent the unfortunate interloper scurrying away, frightened and terrified but mostly still intact.

Or that's what would have happened, if the word hadn't died in Bakura's throat before he could actually punch it out. He hadn't really been expecting to see anyone in particular, but he'd been thinking the nuisance to be some unfortunate sap that hadn't gotten the memo from the rest of the neighborhood that this certain house was to be ignored. Instead, the person Bakura found himself face to face with was that much worse. The loud knocking all made sense, suddenly. There was only one person who could be so infuriatingly annoying, and who could rouse Bakura's hatred like no other. In front of his doorstep stood none other than the ex-Pharaoh.

Before Bakura could begin experiencing the familiar pangs of hatred he usually felt gripping him in the man's presence, he first felt somewhat embarrassed for his unkempt state. He was still in his pajamas—a set of blue cotton pants and shirt that were both several sizes too big for him and sort of hung around his body—and his hair was a messy, tangled halo of white spread out all around his head. No doubt hiding under the pillow had helped it reach its current state of disarray. Then he got over his surprise and realized how stupid it was for him to be feeling anything but hatred because of this man, and so he put on his most impressive scowl and glared evilly at his visitor, rumpled appearance be damned.

"And what the hell do you think you're doing?" he questioned. Atem seemed quite impervious to his mood and state of dress, and instead just smiled a bit and shuffled the thing he was carrying in his arms.

Bakura actually took notice of the thing for the first time, and to him it looked like a bundle of clothing. Perhaps the Pharaoh had brought his dirty laundry with him and was expecting to be allowed the use of their machine? Stupid of him, if that's what he was here for, because there were no doubt places where he could do that thing closer to his own area of living, and there was no way in hell Bakura was going to let him in, not even if it had been later than eight in the morning.

"Hello thief. How are you this morning?" Atem asked, smiling nicely. Bakura's scowl deepened just to spite him.

"Just peachy," he responded.

"That's great to hear. I have a favor to ask of you and Marik. I need you to take care of this." And then without further explanation, he thrust the bundle into Bakura's face. Bakura reached out to grab it out of instinct and not wanting whatever it was to smack him in the face. When he had it in his arms and finally figured out what it actually was, he wished he had never gotten out of bed this morning.

The bundle of clothing was not a bundle of clothing. That much was apparent. The bundle of clothing was actually what seemed to be a swaddled human infant with the barest touches of fuzzy hair growing in on its head.

"What. Is this?" Bakura questioned. He held the thing far faaar away from his body. The venom in his voice had faded some, as he was far too surprised by the creature in his hands to keep up his normal attitude. Where in the hell had Atem _gotten_ this thing?

"Well it's Yuugi obviously!" Atem responded far too cheerfully for how early in the morning it was and for the scenario at hand here.

"What."

"Well I'm not quite sure how it happened. The two of us were eh… well there was some Shadow Magic involved, and the next thing I knew Yuugi was like this!"

Bakura stared. "Please," he said, "—_please!_—do not tell me that you thought using Shadow Magic was a good way to spice up foreplay." From the look of sheepish embarrassment on the ex-Pharaoh's face, Bakura concluded that this was indeed the case. He would have facepalmed if he hadn't still been holding the teen-turned-infant in hand. Even he and Marik knew not to do something so stupid! Shadow Magic was not something to be misused and played around with so casually!

It then occurred to him that he was still holding the creature, and he immediately thrust the thing back at Atem. Atem took a step back and raised his hands in the universal "I don't think so!" sign. Bakura growled and thrust it at him again, with the same results to show for the effort.

"No no, that's okay, you keep him," Atem said with a chuckle.

"_No!_ This has absolutely nothing to do with me! He's not _my_ problem! _I'm_ not the one who cast unpredictable Shadow Magic on him! _You_ take him!" Bakura yelled.

"I cannot do so, thief," Atem said, suddenly becoming serious. Bakura lowered the Yuugi baby a bit so he could see the other's face better, and half-expected something actually important to come from Atem's mouth. Ever since the guy had gotten a body of his own and realized that in this time period ancient pharaohs did not matter, he had become an annoyingly cheerful and relaxed, regular person. It disgusted Bakura to no end.

"You see, I am a very busy man and have a great many things that need my attention. I'm afraid I just don't have the time to watch over Yuugi until he returns to his normal form—"

"And you think I do?" Bakura interrupted when it became apparent that no, Atem was still being a pretty boring, regular dude. Bakura really wasn't sure which side of the man he hated more. There was the Atem of his past life who's father had slaughtered his village and whom he'd grown up hating, and then there was the Atem of his life in this day and age who almost never raised his voice anymore and had apparently fallen into the bad habit of stealing from Yuugi's personal stash of happy drugs. Old Atem would have risen to the bait and entered a heated argument with him about who was more busy and so on and so forth. New Atem just smiled that serene, placating smile of his and continued on as if Bakura's interruption were nothing more than the buzz of a fly by his head he had to wave off once in a while.

"As I was saying, although it greatly pains me to part from Yuugi, I just don't have to time to watch over him. We no longer are living off Yuugi's grandpa. I go to work just like everyone else in this day and age to pay the rent on our apartment. I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to take off work to watch Yuugi and make sure he doesn't get into any trouble, not when I don't know how long it will take the magic to wear off. So I'll need your assistance until Yuugi is back to normal. All you need to do is watch him and make sure he's taken care of," Atem finished. Smiling. As usual.

Bakura rolled his eyes and shifted his stance so that he was leaning against the doorway, still holding the human child in one hand. The baby thing was propped up against his jutted hip, and he could tell from the way Atem's eyes flickered over to the small bundle every few words that this wasn't the best way to hold an infant. The thought made Bakura grin. He couldn't really bring up the argument that he too had to work because of course he didn't (unless one counted the hour or so it took to break into a house and steal enough valuables to pay for rent as work. Bakura thought of it more of a hobby), but he thought he still might be able to bank on the one that there was quite obviously no way in hell he would be able to do any of the things Atem was suggesting. No matter how you looked at it, a centuries-old ancient Egyptian thief with a homicidal personality was just no role model for a growing kid.

"And you really think I'm just going to smile and grin and hold the little brat in my arms and coo at him and tell you, '_why, of course I'll do it!_'?" Bakura questioned.

"Well no, I thought the idea would meet with some resistance, no matter how pleasant the thought that for once in your life, you might do just one small thing out of the kindness in your heart."

Bakura raised a delicately arched eyebrow and stared at Atem a bit more intently. Surely he had to be joking, right? Even with a body all his own, Bakura _still_ wasn't sure he even _had_ a heart, much less that there was any kindness in it if he did.

Atem ignored the gesture and continued on. "I am asking because I know that you will do it. Quite frankly thief, I think you will find that both you and Marik are in debt to me."

"How do you figure that?" Bakura drawled lazily.

"Because I let you both live."

Bakura had his mouth open to respond before the words Atem said actually reached his mind. When they did, he frowned, paused, and closed his mouth. He should have figured Atem would pull that card eventually. He'd been sort of hoping that with the advent of this new nice-guy Atem, he'd let that little detail slid, but it didn't look like it.

The words were true, no matter how much Bakura didn't want to acknowledge it, or even think about the event behind them. It was obvious enough with Marik, and the blonde didn't seem to mind all that much that he owed the Pharaoh for saving him from his darker half, but Bakura did not like being in debt to anyone, much less this man. If he'd known how hard it would be to push it all out of his mind and forget about the benevolence Atem had showed him, he would have allowed the man to kill him instead. Life, even the one he was living now, which was the best he'd had since the beginning, just wasn't worth living when he was always remembering his defeat at the hands of his greatest enemy. And then, because Atem had always prided himself on being "just" and "fair" and spreading his greatness and generosity, he had allowed Bakura to live when Marik had actually gotten down onto his knees and begged for him.

Bakura hated remembering it. He'd lost. He hadn't been strong enough to defeat the Pharaoh after all, and his death was imminent. He'd been expecting it, and so the idea really hadn't bothered him all that much. Atem was close by and ready to deliver the final bit of Shadow Magic that would separate him from the Ring and send his soul to the hell it had belonged to all along. And then Marik had finally broken down and started crying. He'd been strong through all of it except the end, and no one had known until the tears began to fall that anything at all resembling a partnership had been left between the two of them since Battle City, much less anything more than that.

Marik had taken the Sennen Rod from the stone holding it peacefully in place and had advanced on the two of them with the dagger at the end of it drawn. This had surprised Bakura, because he'd never before seen Marik look as out of control and crazed as he did now, not even when his dark half had taken over his body. And he hated the Rod. He'd told Bakura once that the item reminded him of _him_, and that he was glad it would soon be gone forever, one way or another. These two things made Bakura suddenly wonder just how deep the feelings Marik had once vaguely confessed having for him ran.

The distraught teen had given an ultimatum: either Bakura went free, or he would kill Atem. Marik's entire body had been shaking and his eyes wide and livid and wet, but his hands had remained deadly steady. They hadn't twitched once, just continued pointing the dagger at Atem. Bakura knew this for a fact, because he had focused on them the entire time from his vantage point on the ground, at Atem's feet, still waiting for the deathblow that had now been postponed. And just like that, without any more words, Atem had stepped away, and Bakura's imminent death wasn't so imminent any more. Marik had quickly grabbed him off the floor and backed them away from the rest of the group, eyes carefully watching them all. Atem had told him to put the Rod down, please.

He said that he would not kill Bakura if Marik felt so strongly against it. He said that he would rather end this all here, now, without the spilling of any more blood. All he needed were the rest of the Sennen Items, and then things would be over. Everyone would live. But first he needed the Rod, and the Ring, and would Marik please hand them over, gently.

Marik had done as asked. He'd first given the Rod, and then, with a look at Bakura that to this day he still confused him with all the complexities hidden in it, Marik had slowly removed the Ring from the neck of his host. Bakura didn't remember much after that. The moment the Ring had been taken away he of course had been banished back inside, and no doubt Atem completed whatever it was he'd needed to do to get rid of the Sennen Items once and for all. After that, the gods had decided to give both himself and Atem new bodies and a second chance at life, or some shit like that. The rest of it had never really interested him. It was only the beginning that made him sick to his stomach, when he remembered that Marik had actually saved him, and Atem had spared his life. He hated remembering Marik's groveling words, because it had never fit the high-strung blonde to be subservient to anyone, and he utterly despised the look he had seen in Atem's eyes when everyone else had been surprised by the turn of events. That look had said that he _knew_, that he _understood_. It had implied that Atem could decipher all the emotions in the room that Bakura hadn't been able to, and still couldn't, begin to unravel.

The actual pause between Atem's words and Bakura's response to them was not anywhere near as long as it seemed to the white-headed male as he fought against the remembering of events he wished he could just forget. Atem had spoken, Bakura had frowned and crinkled his nose for a bit, and then he was speaking again.

"How long ago did you cast the magic on him?" he asked. Atem's smile brightened a bit more and they both knew it was because Bakura had accepted. The scoreboards were even now.

"It couldn't have been more than two hours ago," Atem answered. Bakura's grimace deepened as he realized that this information meant Atem and Yuugi were the types who got up early in the morning just so they could spend some more time in bed. _Not_ something he had really wanted to know.

"So the spell is still fresh then," Bakura said. Not something he could say about the baby, but that was neither here or there. "It's going to take a while to wear off, no doubt. And you really think that the two of us are the ones fit for this job. Why not ask the friendship bimbo to take care of him until he's normal?"

"Anzu is still in New York studying dancing," Atem answered calmly, completely ignoring the bimbo comment.

"Oh yeah," Bakura said. She'd been gone for like a year now, hadn't she? Well that crossed off one potential candidate. But there was still another. He searched his brain, trying to remember the other girl who'd hung out with the losers. He knew there was another one, but for the life of him, he could not recall anything about her. Ryou's memories that he still possessed from the time they'd been in the same body were also of no help to him. Most of the time his host had not been in control of his body, and so had not ever really met the girl, though there was no doubt in Bakura's mind that if his wimpy host were here now, he'd know who he was thinking of.

Having no other options, Bakura was forced to cede. He straightened up and held the brat with both arms, tried momentarily not to be utterly disgusted by the snot that was hanging from the creature's nose. He failed.

"Call me if you have any problems!" Atem called out. He was halfway down the street by the time Bakura looked up again. And then, mere moments later, Bakura was completely alone, standing in the middle of his doorway with a tiny little thing that's face was screwing up like it was about to break.

Before the Yuugi infant could explode in his hands like a live bomb, Bakura hurriedly headed back indoors and slammed the door shut. If it was going to die or break or something, he wanted it to happen inside where his nosy old neighbors couldn't see.

The moment the door closed the thing in his hands denotated. Bakura was so startled by the screaming coming from its mouth that he almost dropped it on the floor. Instead he held it in his arms and tried to figure out what to do with it next.

It was at this time that Marik finally decided to drag his sorry ass out of bed. Whether it was because he'd just been unfortunate enough to wake up at this moment in time or because the crying Yuugi devil-child had managed to somehow do it, Bakura did not know. It didn't matter much either way, really. Marik emerged from the room still looking half asleep and yawning. His pajamas too draped off his body, and his hair was every bit as messy as Bakura's still looked. He took notice of the child screaming its head off in Bakura's arms almost instantly. An unobscured vision of befuddlement worked its slow way onto his face, and then he promptly turned around and headed back into the bedroom. Bakura followed.

"Oh no you don't," he said. "This is every bit your problem to deal with as it is mine."

"No, it's not," Marik said, not bothering to look behind him at the still-crying infant. "I have no clue why you woke up at the crack-ass of dawn and decided to steal some person's kid, and I don't want to know. I want nothing to do with this at all. If that kid goes missing and cops show up, they're not going to be able to connect me with this in any sort of way."

"Marik, I didn't steal the thing," Bakura said. Marik settled back down onto the bed and did not react to the words in any sort of way. Rather, he made to go back to bed. Bakura huffed and settled the bundle down on the ground, not sure why he was still holding it anyways. The moment it hit the ground, it began to scream and cry even more. Marik flinched at the noise and he resisted the urge to punt the Yuugi-creature across the room.

"Why would I steal a toddler? Come on," he said, climbing onto the bed as well next to Marik. The blonde still did not respond in any sort of way.

"Look, will you stop that! I didn't take the kid from anyone! Atem showed up a bit earlier and shoved him off on us! He and Yuugi used Shadow Magic before they were about to fuck and it turned Yuugi into that thing. He wants us to keep it until—"

"Wait," Marik said. He sat up now and pointed at the screaming child on the floor. "Wait. You're saying that's Yuugi?"

"Yeah. That's Yuugi."

"And Atem wants us to watch him until when? Whenever he turns back to normal?"

"That's the gist of it, yeah."

"But we don't know how long that will take! It could be weeks!"

Bakura nodded. Marik stopped his questions and stared at Yuugi on the floor. Bakura looked as well. It was nearly impossible to believe that something that tiny could scream so loudly.

"We should probably do something about that," Marik said, in reference no doubt to the crying. Bakura agreed silently and then the two of them continued to sit on the bed. Yuugi's face was turning an alarming shade of red due to all the ruckus he'd been causing.

Marik eventually got off the bed and hesitantly approached the infant. He poked it with a toe, and then bent down and scooped it awkwardly into his hands. Yuugi stopped screaming for a second, and Bakura thought that maybe this wouldn't be too bad. Then the second ended and the screaming started up again and Marik actually _did_ drop the kid he was so surprised. Bakura's quick reflexes had Yuugi once again safely in his arms as opposed to on the floor in a heap. This did not stop the crying though.

"Do something about that!" Marik said. His eyes were wide as he was staring at Yuugi's screaming form, and there seemed to be a note of hysteria creeping into his voice.

"I don't know how to stop it!" Bakura snapped, much harsher then he had meant to.

"Then get rid of it! Just make it shut up!" Marik said. And because he really didn't know how to make it stop, and he wanted to listen to Marik panic even less than he did the screaming, Bakura placed the baby down on the bed and grabbed Marik by the hand and walked the two of them out of the room. He closed the door behind him and that muffled the screaming somewhat. Together the two of them headed into the living room and collapsed on the couch like they had been up for several weary hours now.

They didn't say anything for a while. Just listened to the noises of the infant crying in the room down the hall and the sound of one another's breathing, calming in its continuity. Finally when it has either died or fallen into a state of restless sleep, Marik spoke.

"What do we do?" he asked. He kept his voice low and quiet, sensible enough to know that if Yuugi _had_ tired himself out, they had best keep him that way.

Normally, when faced with such a stupid question, Bakura would either ignore the inquiry or growl out some smart-ass reply. This time he knew Marik did not mean to say something to make him angry, but was actually at a loss of what to do here. Bakura only shook his head, indicating his own cluelessness as the situation.

"All right. I'll go call my siblings. They must know something about raising children, right? They had to raise me," Marik mumbled, voice almost inaudible from how silent he was being. This now was less to keep the baby from waking, but more a trace of nostalgia crossing his mind. Bakura knew from the subtle clues about his face, the way his mouth scrunched together and tightened. He too moved from the couch, bringing Marik's attention back to him. The stress from his mouth faded.

"You go read some things on the internet, okay? Try to figure out as much as you can as fast as you can. We don't know when he'll wake up again. And try to use common sense," Marik said with a bit of a chuckle. "We both know there are idiots out there. If you read something that sounds like it would be fun, then it's probably not the best thing to do for the kid's health."

Bakura scoffed and rolled his eyes and put up some argument about how he knew how to judge the quality of things he read on the internet and together they shared a quiet chuckle that was full of weary desperation and nothing even close to resembling actual amusement. With that, Marik headed off into the kitchen, and Bakura to the computer. Thank the gods it was not in the bedroom. There was no way he would be going back in there until he heard the brat screaming again.

If he had been the one calling the shots here, he would not have given himself the task of using the computer. It was not that he did not know how to use it; just that he wasn't very good at it. For both he and Marik having grown up in a situation where machines like this were not even a thought in their heads, the blonde was much more internet-savvy than he. But of course Marik had to call his siblings, and that left the job of rooting through articles to Bakura. If he could figure out how to turn the damn thing on first.

He'd seen Marik do it a million times, but he could never remember where the button was located. If it were any other occasion, he would have just gotten Marik to turn it on for him, but he could tell from the hushed voices coming from the kitchen that the other was already on the phone. That left the task of figuring out technology to him and him alone.

Bakura did eventually succeed in figuring out the machine. From that point forth, it was just a matter of finding articles. And he did find articles. He found a ton. Halfway through the fourth he began to get a headache. It seemed everyone had their own opinion on how to raise children, and those opinions seemed to always either be contradictory, or completely new things Bakura had never heard of. He was having a hard time keeping track of all this. Eventually he got up and searched around for a notebook and started taking notes, crossing out things and adding in new bits of information as he went. It was a messy and time-consuming process. He couldn't hear much from the kitchen with Marik, but from the agitation he heard in the other's muffled voice, he figured it wasn't going much better there. No doubt Isis would want to know exactly what was going on. At least he didn't have to deal with that.

About two hours had passed before Marik finally got off the phone and headed back into the living room. He took a seat on the couch and sighed heavily. He had a notebook clenched in his hands as well. Bakura himself had filled up eleven pages so far with notes from articles, book sections, and informative videos. What he had seen and read so far did not brighten him up any. This was going to be hell.

"When Isis heard what I was asking, her first question was to know if we had adopted," Marik announced to the room. "Then she wanted to know if we had stolen the kid." Bakura shook his head. What was with that question?

"I asked her if she thought we were idiots. Can you imagine the two of us adopting?"

"I'd rather be sealed in the Sennen Ring for another thousand years," Bakura groaned.

"Yeah that's pretty much what I told her. Then of course she wanted to know _why_ I was asking, and spent about twenty minutes listening to me explain what had happened. _Then_ she spent another twenty trying to convince me to let me come over and take care of Yuugi herself," Marik said.

"Why the hell didn't you take her up on that offer?" Bakura asked, incredulous that Marik could not see what a great opportunity this was. Marik raised his head from where it had fallen to rest on the couch arm and looked him dead in the eyes.

"Believe me, I know it sounds like a brilliant idea right now, but you wouldn't be thinking the same way after she'd been buzzing around and sticking her nose into everything that doesn't concern her for a few days. She's a nuisance. Why do you think I wanted to move out so badly?"

"I thought that was so you could see me whenever you felt like it," Bakura replied with a bit of a grin. Marik gave him a weary one in return, and the lack of effort behind it dampened Bakura's own spirits. The boy looked tired. He was tired, now that he thought about it, and it wasn't just because he'd been woken up so early. How were they supposed to raise this kid? They hadn't even dealt with the brat much and they were both already at the end of their ropes.

"So what did you find out? Anything interesting?" Marik questioned, changing the subject.

"Mmm," Bakura hummed in agreement. He opened his notebook and quickly scanned over some of the hastily written notes. "Well the first thing is that we probably shouldn't have locked him up in the room by himself like that. Could fall off the bed and break his skull open."

"Isis said something along the lines of making sure one of us is watching him at all times as well. He won't be so bad now, but apparently once the fucker starts to crawl he'll get into everything," Marik said. Neither of them moved from their stationary spots, though both strained their ears to hear if there was any crying or noise coming from the bedroom. Nothing at all.

"He's probably fine," Bakura said quickly. Marik nodded. And then they became quiet again, and both sets of eyes once more strayed to the door.

"We really should go and check on him," Marik said.

"Atem would kill us if anything bad had happened to him," Bakura agreed. He got up from his chair but did not go to the bedroom. Instead he took a seat on the couch next to Marik and wrapped his arms around him in an embrace.

Neither of them were especially touchy people. In public as well as in private they touched each other so little it would be impossible to believe that there was something between them more than friendship. The only reason they slept in the same bed at night was for the convenience of it, and because Marik was prone to having nightmares. Even so, the only time they cuddled was after one of Marik's nightmares, when the blonde was too freaked out to care about the small touch-phobia he had. Bakura just wasn't keen on touch much to begin with. He supposed he may have been, in another lifetime, but after having spent centuries as a soul inside of a golden ring, he no longer felt the need to express himself through the sense of touch as humans so often did.

Given that, when he put his arms around Marik, the blonde's natural reaction was to stiffen up. He calmed himself a moment later as he recognized the comfort in the gesture and melted into it. Bakura held on to him loosely and maneuvered them both so that they were resting nicely on the couch, himself against the armrest and Marik against him. This wasn't something he normally did, and he felt silly about doing it now, like he was somehow doing it all wrong, and embarrassed because he thought someone would know. But he could tell that Marik needed a break, and even if this was a mortifying show of affection he was putting on display here, the blonde seemed to enjoy it and snuggled down into his embrace quite nicely. He wound up falling asleep. And then before he knew it, Bakura was asleep as well.

They both woke up some time later with the sound of high-pitched screaming in their ears. Marik stiffened up and almost instantly flung himself away from Bakura. Bakura too tensed from the unwanted interruption. Together they both looked at each other first, and then the door to the bedroom. As one they got off the couch and braved the screaming menace inside. Bakura hoped that Marik had gotten the most he could out of that little break there. Because he had a bad feeling they wouldn't get another for a long, long time. Not while Yuugi was still like this.

00000

"How old do you think he is?"

"What?"

"I said, _how old do you think he is?_"

They were racing on Marik's motorbike to the closest store they could think of. If they were going to take care of a baby, they would need baby things. Bakura had a list of everything the two of them could think to buy on a piece of paper somewhere. He looked down at the bundled infant nestled tightly between Marik's back and his chest. One hand was holding the baby and keeping him from dropping; the other was holding on to Marik tightly. The thing had actually stopped crying, but that was most likely because Bakura was unsure how much air it could get into its tiny lungs going as fast as they were on the bike. Both males agreed that this was _not_ the way to transport a baby, but they didn't have any other means or transportation. Marik rode his bike no matter what the weather called for, and Bakura usually used it whenever he needed to go somewhere as well. Of course this was yet another thing they would have to figure out, but right now the matter of food was more important.

"I don't know. Can't be older than a year yet," Bakura yelled into Marik's ear.

"That means he still needs formula, right?"

"I think so!"

Yes, the articles had talked a lot about formula and all the different brands. However, he had written none of that stuff done. Milk was milk, right? So formula, and then some baby food too. He thought the brat was old enough to handle real food. Or at least a pureed, mashed up version of real food.

Upon reaching the supermarket, the two decided things would get done much quicker if they split up to grab the things on the list. Bakura would take the baby. Marik was afraid he would drop it.

So Bakura took his half of the list with him and headed down the aisles until he came to the section with the baby food, baby strewn haphazardly over his shoulder. He glared daggers at the women who gawked openly at him as he passed. Upon reaching the correct aisle, he set Yuugi up on his hip, and then proceeded to stare in horror at the prices of formula.

As a thief, he was of course used to expensive things. And really, the price of formula wasn't all _that_ expensive. It just seemed more than a little ridiculous that what amounted to powdery, nutrient-rich milk cost as much as it did. Scowling at the thought of just how much hard-earned money this kid was going to drain from him, Bakura set about grabbing several cartons of the cheapest formula he could find. And then his frowned deepened even further as he realized he was going to need a cart for all this crap and had to go all the way back to the entrance of the store to receive one, dealing with the incredulous stares of women all over again. He swore once he got back to the house he was going to look up the proper way to hold the brat and shut all of these bitches up.

Upon returning once more to the baby food aisle, Bakura then started grabbing random cans of baby food. At least until he noticed the flavors of some of the food, and then he actually began paying attention to what he was putting into the cart. When he had finished with that he grabbed a few more things on his section of the list and then headed to the front of the store to meet up with Marik.

Marik had grabbed other necessities for raising a small child, like diapers. A lot of diapers. He too had grabbed a cart, and it seemed like the entire thing was full of nothing more that diapers upon diapers upon diapers. And the stray bottle here and there of baby powder.

"Think you got enough?" Bakura asked.

"Isis said they poop a lot," Marik replied a bit absently. He was investigating the things Bakura had bought. He held up a can of baby food with a strange look on his face.

"Bakura, you can't get him this stuff to eat. This is almost whole food. He can't eat it until he gets older," he said, pointing to the three on the label that apparently meant the food was for an older child then the one they were currently saddled with.

"That was the only stuff that sounded good. The rest of it all was like vegetables and peas and stuff," Bakura replied, grimacing. Marik pursed his lips.

"Something wrong with vegetables?" he asked.

"Yeah. They're gross," Bakura responded cheekily. Marik opened his mouth and might have gotten into an argument here with him in the store had not Yuugi also opened his mouth. Marik's lavender eyes widened as he stared at the baby and the color drained from his face. Bakura knew right away that he was worried the creature would start crying again.

"Let's just get some new food and then leave, okay? He's got to be hungry by now. I'll go grab some cans and you pay for the stuff." And then before Bakura could agree with him, Marik was scurrying away as fast as he could, not even moving in the right direction. Bakura sighed and shifted the baby so he was resting a bit easier on his hip, and moved the two carts up in line.

Marik returned by the time almost all the purchases had been scanned. They paid and Bakura pouted to see his money go. They got out of the store the moment the Yuugi baby opened his mouth and began to scream again. Marik hurried about trying to hang as many bags as he could on the handles of the bike while Bakura held the child awkwardly in his hands and wondered how to make it turn off. People going into the store gave him and the crying child looks as they passed, either of annoyance at the loud noise or pity for the situation he found himself in. Bakura snarled at them. One woman with a snot-nosed kid of her own tried to stop and help, but he gave her a withering look and sent her on her way. He did not need the pity and help of others. He could raise his own damn child!

Marik eventually got all of the bags on, and although the bike looked dorky as hell, they were able to leave. They sped off to the house as quickly as they could, and when they got there Bakura tore open one of the bags and grabbed a carton of formula. He dumped the milk into a cheap plastic bottle he'd purchased and stuck it forcefully into Yuugi's mouth. The baby cried around the bottle.

"I don't know what to do! He's not eating!" Bakura said.

"His face is all red and splotchy. You think all the wind hurt him somehow?" Marik asked. The blonde was dancing nervously behind Bakura's back, like he wanted to move and help but also didn't want to get anywhere near the thing.

"I don't know! I don't think so. He was sandwiched between us the entire time; he should be fine! Brat just doesn't want to eat," Bakura snarled, becoming angry by the minute. It seemed the cries of babies had the ability to reduce him into a snarling, growling mess.

"Maybe he needs to be changed," Marik suggested nervously. Bakura stopped his angry movements. He looked at the baby suspiciously. It was crying loudly, like it had been crying the entire day. He briefly remembered having smelled something nasty when he was holding the thing earlier. Did it need to be changed?

He approached the bundle nervously. He grabbed a corner of the cloth that swaddled the baby and pulled at it. Yuugi flopped over onto his side and cried even louder. Marik made a noise of disapproval behind him but did not step forward to help. By yanking and pulling Bakura eventually got enough of the blankets undone to show that yes, the baby needed to be changed.

"Oh gods!" Marik cried out the moment the smell reached him. His hands instantly flew to his nose. Bakura's were already there. The stench was terrible. Even worse than the smell was the sight of it. The Yuugi-baby had been wearing nothing other than the blankets swaddled around him. The mess was all over him. Bakura could not believe he had not noticed this earlier, with all the times he'd been holding the thing. The thought that this had all been there when he'd had the baby just earlier made his skin crawl.

"Um. So what do we do now?" Bakura questioned as best he could while still trying to keep his mouth and nose covered.

"_We_ don't do anything. I'm not going _near_ that," Marik said. Bakura spun around to face him.

"You are not leaving me to change that. I refuse to do it by myself."

"Bakuraaaa," Marik whined. "I can't do it! I can't go anywhere near him as it is! I'll… I'll take the next one or something! I just can't do this yet." And then he left the room. Bakura stared flabbergast at the space Marik had used to occupy. He was running away! He could not _believe_ this!

After a few more minutes of staring for good measure, it became apparent that Marik was not coming back. Bakura crinkled his nose up. What was his problem, anyways? All day Marik had been acting strange. He would have to have a talk with him later tonight. After _this_ was finished.

The task was something Bakura would have never wished on his worst enemy. The baby stank even more up close, and the blankets he had been in were quite obviously ruined. He hoped they had been extremely important to Atem. Would serve him right for leaving him and Marik with this. The mess just would not come off, no matter how many baby wipes Bakura used. It seemed like every time he unearthed a patch of freshly scrubbed pink skin, there was just another area to clean around the corner. Or pudgy leg. Yuugi was a very fat baby. He wondered if it would not just be faster to pick the thing up and deposit it into the bathtub and clean it that way, but he reconsidered. He didn't know the first thing about washing a baby, and he really didn't want the mess in there. That was gross.

So instead he kept scrubbing. And eventually, though it took Yuugi peeing one more time for good measure (thank the gods not on him), Bakura got the teen-turned-baby clean. Then he had to fiddle around with the diaper. By the time he figured the thing out, Yuugi's screaming fit was in full effect. He had not stopped once through the entire cleaning episode. Bakura shoved the bottle with the formula in his mouth after he had deposited the dirty blankets, and luckily enough that actually quieted the kid down.

With Yuugi finally quiet for a few seconds, Bakura left the room in search of Marik. The door to their shared bedroom was closed. Bakura thought briefly about knocking, and then remembered he didn't care about shit like that and barged right on in. Marik was sitting on the edge of the bed, head in hands. He looked up at Bakura when he entered. He looked a bit better, but still nowhere close to the suave, collected Marik Bakura was used to. This Marik was a wreck.

"So what's your problem?" he asked. It wasn't the nicest way of going about things, but he didn't know any other alternative.

Marik frowned at him, sighed, and turned away. Bakura got about ready to complain about how melodramatic he was being about this entire thing, but then the blonde was opening his mouth up and actually talking.

"I can't do this, Bakura. I can't take care of a baby. I sort of thought I might be able to, at first, but…"

"But what?" Bakura questioned, hands poised on his hips. "You better have a damn good excuse, because I'm not letting you just check out and leave me to take care of the kid. This is a two-man job, at least."

"I'm not doing this because I just don't want to take care of him, Bakura," Marik said darkly. He sent Bakura a choice look, which the older teen promptly ignored. So what if he hurt Marik's feelings? He was a big boy. He could handle himself. At least he could when he wasn't being a whiny bitch about changing a damn diaper.

"Every time I look at that baby, I think of all the ways I can mess him up. The way I was messed up," Marik said. His gaze trailed to the ground but did not soften. Bakura was just beginning to understand the turn this conversation had taken. "I can't raise him. I can try to help, but I can't do anything more than that. If I try, it'll mess up everything."

"Marik, I honestly doubt—"

"Don't try convincing me otherwise. You have no clue what I'm feeling right now. It's not going to happen," Marik said. Bakura frowned. He couldn't disagree with the statement, and it irritated him. He had no idea how humans felt on most occasions. The range of emotions left in him was a limited, stunted thing, and most of what he saw or heard didn't make sense to him. Whatever it was Marik was feeling also eluded his grasp. And as for sugarcoated words of comfort, he'd never given them even when he had been alive.

"You should go back out there and check on him. You can't leave babies on their own for a second," Marik said. He lied down on the bed and threw the covers over him, signaling that the conversation was over. Bakura scoffed and headed for the door.

"Was just going to. After all, I'm the responsible parent around here, aren't I?" he quipped before he left. He took some satisfaction in the bang of something being thrown against the door after he'd closed it. He face twisted into a crooked smirk and he sauntered back into the living room to check on the brat. Yuugi was working the bottle like he thought it would be taken away from him. Bakura remembered vaguely something about holding babies while they drank milk to help it digest easier, so he picked the kid up.

The bottle dropped from Yuugi's mouth when he did so, and for a frightening second, Bakura thought he was about to begin crying again. His bright purple eyes watered and the line of his mouth wavered. Fortunately, all it took to prevent that from happening was shoving the bottle back in his mouth. Yuugi began sucking on it instantly. Bakura sighed gratefully and headed over to the couch, where he sat and waited for the kid to finish up.

He smelled strange, that was the first thing Bakura really noticed. That and that maybe the kid did look a little bit like Yuugi at this point, once a guy got past the ugly baby part. Had the same eyes, at any rate. Eyes that were—thank gods—beginning to droop and become heavy-lidded. Bakura didn't move an inch. He just continued to hold the bottle in place and rejoiced a bit more when the brat gave up the good fight and conked out. Then his smile lost its oomph when he realized he had no idea where to put the kid.

First things first, he dealt with the problem of the bottle. After moving painstakingly slowly off the couch without waking the baby up, he slunk to the kitchen and deposited the bottle away in the fridge. Next, he moved to the spare room that was now sort of his storage closet and hunted for something he could use as a makeshift bed. A crib wasn't something they had thought to put on their list, though he doubted they would have found one at a grocery store anyhow.

He finally settled on the only solution he could think of on such short notice: a pile of dirty clothes. It wasn't the best option, but at least it would be comfortable. He put Yuugi down as slowly and steadily as he dared, and breathed a nearly audible sigh of relief when the child did not wake. Then he left the room just as quietly. He left the door ajar so he would be able to hear the kid when he woke up. Then he headed into his own room. It was much earlier than the time he normally went to bed at, but he was beat.

Marik was still on the bed, cocooned in a nest of blankets huddled tight to his body. Bakura scowled and left the bedroom to grab an extra blanket so he'd actually have something to sleep with. Then he quickly changed, got into bed, and slept the sleep of the dead.

Until the raucous eruption of cries awoke him from it. Beside him, Marik was already awake and glaring at the open door like it had dealt him some grievous insult.

"Shut that thing up _now_," he commanded. Bakura blinked, still not quite aware of what was going on and who was making that noise and way too tired to respond with the venom Marik deserved for trying to boss him around like that. Then all the events of the day hit him like a particularly bad hangover and he groaned. The baby. Yuugi. Of course.

He slouched out of bed and made his way to the adjacent room. Even the ear-piercing screams could not motivate him to move faster. He grabbed the baby and held him in the air and hoped that would make him shut up. It did not. Yuugi continued to scream. So, muttering curses to himself, Bakura walked with baby in hand to the kitchen, where he grabbed the bottle and shoved it in the kid's mouth. The screaming continued. Then Bakura realized he had not heated the formula up, and so took it out of the brat's mouth and popped it in the microwave for a few seconds. When it finished he gave it to the baby again, hoping that now the noises would stop. They still did not. Bakura nearly screamed himself in frustration.

He placed the baby on the floor and then proceeded with the next most reasonable course of action: changing the diaper. This one was luckily enough only wet. No little surprises hidden inside. He didn't think he could have dealt with it if there had been. So Bakura changed the diaper and placed a new one on (he was getting a bit better at understanding how they worked), and then he tried the bottle again. It worked this time, and after half an hour Yuugi was again asleep. Bakura dropped the kid off in the spare room and then slouched back to his own bed. Marik was already curled up and asleep again. Lucky bastard.

Yuugi woke up several more times during the night. It seemed to happen every single time Bakura found himself just about beginning to drift off. Then the screams would come, and Marik would bitch, and he would find himself again in the living room trying to figure out what was wrong. It wasn't a dirty diaper. It wasn't that the kid was hungry. He just cried. And cried. And cried. Nonstop. No matter how much Bakura screamed at him and then was reduced to actual pleading (but not begging. _Never_ begging. He did not beg.). The kid just did not stop. He soon stopped even bothering to return them both to their separate rooms. He fell asleep on the couch in the living room with the kid on his chest. It was much more convenient this way, and by the time the sun started peeking in through the windows, Bakura didn't have enough energy to even think about making the trip down the hall.

He awoke to the sound of banging against the door. For a while Bakura thought it would be Atem, come to bring a baby Yuugi with him, but then the crying of Yuugi, who'd actually been asleep that time too, reminded him that this had already happened. Bakura dragged himself off the couch and wondered where the hell Marik was and who the hell was evil enough to come knocking.

His second question was answered pretty quickly. He opened the door and saw Malik on the other end. He almost slammed it shut again before he also noticed that Ryou was there, and practically went flying out the door and into his look-alike's arms.

"Oh thank gods, Ryou!" Bakura exclaimed. If Ryou was surprised by the enthusiastic greeting, it rated nowhere near as high as Bakura's own astonishment. He had never been so happy to see his old host before.

"Hello! We heard from Atem that you were taking care of baby Yuugi. I guess it's true then!" Ryou said cheerfully, looking at the baby in Bakura's arms. "Has he been giving you a hard time?"

"You have no idea," Bakura said, suddenly coming to his senses and returning to his normal self. Or at least as normal as he could get while running on fumes. "I think the damn thing's broken. He didn't sleep at all last night. Which meant _I_ didn't sleep at all last night either."

"Ooh, that sounds harsh. Didn't Marik help out any?" Ryou questioned. A bit too innocently for Bakura's liking. He narrowed his eyes and glared at the white-headed teen suspiciously. Then Malik laughed behind him and he was forced to turn to keep track of the flow of the conversation.

"Are you kidding me? He'd want nothing to do with the brat! My weaker half is terrified of children," Malik announced.

"So I've come to notice," Bakura said. It made sense that Malik would know of Marik's feelings on young children, but the insight struck Bakura as unexpected all the same. It had to be because he hadn't slept any. There was no other way someone like Malik would have gotten the upper hand on him.

"Yes, I've got a problem with babies, now are you all going to stand around outside and gossip about me some more, or are you going to come in so the neighbors stop staring at you all?" Marik said from the doorway, bringing all three pairs of eyes to him. He was dressed and everything, and Bakura had to wonder how long he'd been awake for.

"Ahh, hikari, how nice to see you! It's been such a long time! You look as puny and weak as ever!" Malik cackled.

"Yeah yeah, you're still so much better than I am, blah blah, drop the shit and get inside already," Marik said, rolling his eyes. Malik grinned and made a crude gesture with his tongue as he passed, but he went in all the same. Ryou followed happily along next, and Bakura brought up the rear with Yuugi. He locked eyes with Marik on the way in and hoped the blonde knew exactly how pissed he was at him.

Once upon a time, Marik would have never wanted to be in the same room as his darker half. When Atem had given Bakura his own body, he had also done the same thing for Malik, claiming he wanted to be fair about it. Bakura secretly suspected his motivation behind the act hadn't been so sincere. No doubt, the ex-Pharaoh had wanted an easy way to solve the problem should Malik start acing up again and cause Marik to go crazy. But in the end, the separate personality had been made his own form just like everyone else.

No one had wanted anything to do with the psychotic yami. Marik had probably been the most vehemently against his being granted autonomy, and had been pissed for a very long time because of it. Ryou, being the naïve, gentle, idiotic soul that he was, ready to see the best in everyone and everything (not to mention the experience he already had in dealing with the unstable), had volunteered to house Malik and keep a close eye on him. Under Ryou's guidance, the dark spirit had become less of a lethal threat to the wellbeing of those he associated with and more of a general menace and pest. Then he and Ryou had started going together, and it had surprised everyone to know that even the darkest of monsters could be tamed, on some level. After that, everyone had begun to regard the being as something close to human, a status Bakura was still not quite sure he had achieved.

Though for a long time Marik had still been volatile about the entire thing, even he had eventually warmed up to his other after seeing the disgustingly sweet and sappy mess he became when Ryou turned on the charm. Apparently even devils were not immune to the boy's puppy dog eyes. He would never admit to it, but once in a while even Bakura had dealt Ryou a softer punishment for disobeying him for the same reason Malik was now quite safe to be around. Now Marik and Malik had something of an allegiance between the two of them, like two brothers who couldn't quite find it in them to truly hate the other's guts. The fights they got into nowadays were all for fun.

Now, upon entering the living room, the two Egyptians settled themselves quite nicely around the kitchen table while Bakura and Ryou settled down on the living room couch with the baby. Maybe there was something in Malik that wanted to stay far away as well. He and Marik appeared to be discussing something at any rate, though no words were actually said between them.

"Aww! Look how cute he is! I could just eat you up, yes I could!" Ryou cooed. Bakura stared at his ex-host like he was a madman, and had no problems relinquishing the baby when Ryou held his arms out for him.

"Oh, but you're a smelly baby, aren't you? I think someone needs a change of diapers," Ryou remarked as his nose crinkled.

"Are you serious? I just changed him like two hours ago! At this rate we're going to run out of diapers!" Bakura raged.

"Where are they?" Ryou asked politely.

"Where are what?" Bakura asked, lost now.

"The diapers," he responded, as if it were the most natural thing in the world and Bakura was just a bit dense for not having figured out what he was hinting at. Bakura got off the couch and went into the kitchen where the diapers had, for the time being, been stored under the sink. He kicked Malik's chair as he passed to stop the yami from laughing at him, which didn't work. Then he gave a diaper over to Ryou and watched in amazement as the young boy changed Yuugi like a professional.

"What? It's not _that_ hard to do!" he announced when he caught sight of Bakura's staring.

Ryou explained that he and Malik had really just come for a visit to see the new baby. (The way he said it made it sound like the kid was something he and Marik had actually _adopted_.) Malik butted in then and said that he had come to visit to see how terrible they had already messed the kid up, and if he was dead or not. At that point, Ryou playfully hit him, and Malik swooped in and kissed him on the lips. Bakura turned away in disgust and Marik made a not-so-subtle coughing noise that sounded more like a lawnmower trying to start again after it had ran over someone's dog. At that point Ryou had blushed and coyly pushed Malik away and tried to get back on track with the conversation.

After the… _interruption_… Ryou said that after seeing just how adorable Yuugi was (how anyone could think green shot dripping from some squishy faced fat creature thing was adorable, Bakura didn't know), and how tired Bakura looked, if Bakura and Marik didn't mind, he could watch Yuugi for a bit and maybe let them get some sleep?

"Ryou, you are my savior. I'm so glad I never decided to kill you," Bakura announced. Some time in the past such a carelessly caustic remark might have upset Ryou, but now all it did was make him smile that annoyingly happy smile of his and make some lame talk about how it was no trouble at all. Bakura waved him off and headed for the beckoning embrace of his room. Before he got there, he paused in the doorway.

"I don't want the two of you getting handsy with one another just because no one's out here to stop you, all right? I'm pretty sure that would cause some brain-warpage, and I'm thinking Atem wants to get his love-slave back in one piece," he said dryly.

"Same goes for the two of you!" Malik called back at him.

"I'm not going to bed. I'm not tired," Marik announced, cutting the good cheer in the room like a knife through butter. Bakura's grin faltered and he frowned at the other teen. It went unsaid that the real reason he did not want to go in there was because he did not want to be with Bakura. Malik and even Ryou both seemed to sense this. Ryou started babbling nervously to the room in response to the silence. Bakura himself shrugged and went into the bedroom. Fine by him if he got the bed all to himself.

He climbed in without bothering to change clothes. Not that it really mattered, as he was still in his pajamas from earlier anyways. It was a little strange without Marik sleeping next to him, even if the two of them did usually stay on their separate sides of the bed. The unfamiliarity of the situation might have kept him awake if he hadn't been so dead tired. As it was, he fell asleep only a second after he got himself comfortable.

The next time he woke up, it was not to Yuugi's screaming, but to the weight of another body jumping on top of his own. Bakura jolted up in the bed and saw blonde hair and tanned skin and for a second thought it was Marik who had pounced on him. Then he noticed it was only Malik.

"Wakey wakey sleeping beauty," Malik crooned.

"What the hell do you want?" Bakura snarled. He might have tolerated Marik jumping on him. Maybe. But Malik, no, Malik deserved the full front of his anger.

"Ryou asked me to wake you up. We're about ready to leave, which means you get stuck babysitting again," Malik said with a grin.

"Oh wonderful. Just great. Marik is still refusing to help out then?" Bakura questioned sarcastically. He already knew this would be the fact. Strangely enough, Malik seemed to get a bit defensive when he made the remark.

"He's trying. Don't get angry with him," the yami said. The words came out in a queerly serious tone, given the person speaking them, and almost had the effect of making Bakura actually listen to them.

"I'm not angry with him. Or least not that much. Just exasperated and fed up with his bullshit," Bakura responded tersely. Malik frowned for just a second before his face returned to its normal impish look and chased away the pensive expression that seemed so out of place. Then he was up and darting around the room like a kid hopped up on sugar, and Bakura was being pulled out of his oh-so comfortable bed and into the living room before he had a chance to yell at the one doing the pulling.

"We'll come visit again soon! Try not to kill him, Bakura, and take care! Marik, remember what we talked about!" Ryou called out, waving as he left. Behind him, Malik gifted them all a mischievous grin and then no doubt did something lewd, as Ryou's bright red face was the last thing any of them saw before the door closed and the house was again silent, other than Yuugi hiccupping in Bakura's arms. On a different occasion, he might have asked what Ryou meant with that last tantalizing comment, but as Marik disappeared into the kitchen in search of food, Bakura took this to mean that the two of them still were not talking.

"That's fine. We don't need him, do we, little brat? No we don't," Bakura confided to the bundle in his arms. Ryou had wrapped the baby in a soft microfiber blanket that Bakura couldn't remember ever having seen in the house before. The kid was also now dressed in clothes, which was probably a good thing. Marik had been in charge of buying clothes when they went to the store the other day, but Bakura hadn't even thought of putting any of the outfits on the thing. Ryou was a natural-born parent, it seemed. Atem really should have given the kid to him. Surely the limey bastard owed him for something. And if he didn't, then Malik should have at any rate.

"You wanna watch a movie? 'Course you do. Even if you didn't, you wouldn't be able to say no. Thank the gods you can't talk yet," he mumbled to himself as he crouched down to rifle through the selection of movies they had on hand. Most were stolen from the video rental place down the street, and all were of the horror variety. Bakura picked out one of his favorites. Lots of blood and unnecessary, gratuitous violence.

"You probably shouldn't be watching this, but what the hell, you're not old enough to remember anything yet anyways. No brain-warpage for you just yet," Bakura said absently. In his arms, Yuugi bobbed his large baby head in what he pretended to be agreement. Feeling silly and just a little bit happier after his nap (it also helped that this was one of the times the thing wasn't screaming its head off), Bakura turned to the baby and made a face. Yuugi's chubby face scrunched up, and with growing horror Bakura thought he had made the thing cry again. Instead, the kid laughed. Bakura stared. Apparently that was also funny, because he laughed again, the end of it trailing off into a cooing, babbling noise that might have sounded like speech.

Bakura laughed. He actually laughed, and for the hell of it, made another face, which resulted in another stream of laughter coming from the baby.

"Well look at that," he mused to himself. He turned to tell Marik what had happened, then remembered that Marik was ignoring him, and his face fell back into its default scowling position. Yuugi managed to free an arm from the restrictive blanket and waved it in front of Bakura's face, successfully directing his attention back to the child. His expression did not change any, but he felt a little better looking at the kid again. He turned the lights off in the room and directed them both to the couch, then hit "Play" on the remote.

"What the hell, he can fuck off. We're going to have a great time without him. You'll love this, just watch," Bakura said. Yuugi strung together another nonsense stream of vowels and consonants, like he was responding to his words. Bakura rolled his eyes and mentally berated himself for thinking the child had enough intelligence to do such a thing, and then settled down into the cushions of the couch and started watching his movie.

00000

Over the next few days, Bakura steadily began to reconsider his previously unmentioned but half-formed thought that maybe this all wasn't so bad. Sure Marik made sure to never be stuck in the same room with him and the kid. On the off chance they happened to want to eat food at the same time or something, the blonde just pretended like Bakura and Yuugi didn't exist. It was annoying, but Bakura could deal with it. He'd gone thousands of years without human interaction, and he still had the brat if he got really lonely (which he did not.) The baby's little giggling fit was not repeated, though sometimes he did start babbling for random bouts of time, and that was sort of interesting, somewhat. He even thought that maybe he was starting to get the hang of all the things he was should and should not do. Okay, it was all good. He could deal with this.

Then he had to deal with another two nights of not getting any sleep. The first night was almost okay. He'd dealt with it the night before, and as long as he was able to take a nap again later on in the day, Bakura thought he would be fine.

He did not get to take a nap.

And then Yuugi had remained awake crying the next night, and by morning Bakura's patience and energy reserves were nonexistent. He felt like throwing himself out into the middle of oncoming traffic. Might have, if he had the stamina to even go out the door. Suddenly, it seemed like his life revolved around the whims of a tiny little human infant. He would have laughed hysterically if the fact that it was the truth weren't so sad. When he wasn't changing diapers or feeding the kid or dressing him of finding him something to put in his mouth because he seemed to like doing that, or taking something out of his mouth because it was bad for him, Bakura lived his life on the couch in the living room, trying to find a few seconds to himself where he could rest and recuperate.

Even though he _knew_ the child slept, it didn't feel like it at all. In the moments where Yuugi fell asleep and Bakura was too tired to get up and take care of his own needs, he fell asleep the second his head hit the armrest, and sometimes even before then. He would wake up when Yuugi did and an hour or two would have passed, but to him it would have felt like only a second. And then the horror of his waking moments would begin and he'd have to go on taking care of the baby and wishing that there was a weapon in the house that would end his life a bit faster than one of his beloved knives.

By the night of the fourth day, when Marik had appeared long enough to remind him that they had bought baby food for a reason, and that maybe he should try feeding it to the kid, Bakura was ready to break down. He'd tried feeding Yuugi the mashed up slop of vegetables, but the task was no picnic. The entire day he'd been horrified to find that more often than not his eyes would start tearing up for no reason, and the idea of sitting down and bawling in the same manner as Yuugi was becoming more and more appealing. His hands were not steady enough to bring the little plastic spoon up to Yuugi's mouth for him to consume anything. Every time he got close to the kid's mouth, Yuugi would suddenly veer his head in a different direction, or he'd spit the food right back up when it did get in him.

That night ended with Bakura knocking over the chair he'd been sitting in and screaming at the top of his lungs at the child, eyes watering and threatening to spill over. Then Yuugi started crying, and Bakura picked him up, stashed him in the spare room, and huddled up on the couch and tried to block out the noise audible even with the door to the room closed. Even when the crying stopped, he still did not sleep.

The dawn of the fifth morning found Bakura more zombie-like than ever before. He could not remember a point in his long life where he had felt worse than this, not even when he'd sometimes gone days in Egypt in the old times without any food to eat. That had been agony. This was torture. But for better or worse, he felt completely drained and empty after his screaming fit, and he found himself strangely calm. When he went into the room and found that Yuugi had vomited all over himself and the pile of dirty clothes, Bakura did nothing other than pick the child up, discard the soiled outfit, wet him down and clean him up in the kitchen sink, and then dress him once again. When it became very apparent later on in the day that the baby had caught some kind of cold, Bakura still did not freak out. With infant situated on his leg, he logged onto the computer and searched for information regarding what he could do. Even though he got even less sleep than normal that night due to his being up all night with a sick child, he still did not crack until the next morning, where it became also very apparent that Bakura had caught whatever flu bug Yuugi had.

He woke up that morning not because Yuugi was being loud, as usual, but because he felt like he was going to be sick. He leaned over the side of the couch, careful not to disturb the baby sleeping on his chest, and retched. A thin string of drool trailed past his lips and his stomach heaved again, despite there being nothing to bring up. He could not remember when he had eaten last, which had somehow become a good thing. He doubted it would have been nice to have to clean the carpet first thing in the morning.

Bakura shifted on the couch once his stomach finally felt settled enough to move. The taste of bile coated his throat and he gagged and upchucked once more, or would have, had there been anything of sustenance in him. Yuugi turned in his sleep and his stomach shuddered beneath the movement. Bakura panted heavily and closed his eyes in a vain attempt to get his body back under his control. He didn't want to have to wake up the baby, not when he was actually asleep and quiet, but he had to move, couldn't keep lying here, not when he stomach was churning and doing fucking acrobatic pirouettes inside him.

He moved and Yuugi woke up but thankfully did not begin crying right away. The kid looked just as bad as he felt, and Bakura found himself feeling a little bit of sympathy for the two of them in their plight, especially when the kid's bottom lips began to tremble.

"It's all right, kid. We're gonna be fine," he said. His voice was raspy and his throat dry. It felt like he had woken from a hangover, but without all the fun that usually led up to one. He needed something to drink. No doubt the kid was hungry too.

He shakily got to his feet and moved a few steps away from the couch, and then abruptly all of his strength left him and Bakura found himself crashing to the floor.

He managed to get his arms around Yuugi fast enough to prevent the child from face-planting the floor, though he still wound up with a scrape on his chin from where he'd brushed against the carpet. Yuugi started screaming his head off instantly. Bakura slowly gathered him close and tried to shush him, then realized he didn't have the strength to get off the ground. He'd never felt closer to crying than this.

"Bakura? I heard a bang and the baby started crying. What's going on out… here." Marik had decided to finally put in an appearance. As he walked out of the hallway, he first had a scrunched up look on his face, like he had smelled something bad. No doubt he was angry at actually being forced to talk to Bakura here. Then he came all the way out into the living room, saw the state the two other males were in, and concern replaced the sour look.

"What the hell happened? You look like shit," he said.

"Nice of you to notice," Bakura barked out harshly. He was working to get himself off the floor, turning the embarrassment he felt at getting caught in such a situation into anger and strength. His free arm wobbled underneath him, but he managed to accomplish the task and stood up. The moment he did, the floor spun and he promptly found himself sagging again. He no doubt would have fallen if Marik had not been there to haul him up and support him.

"I don't need your help," Bakura scowled, nevermind the fact that it was obvious to both of them that he did. So obvious that Marik didn't even bother responding to his words.

"What happened?" he asked again instead.

"Nothing fucking happened, nothing at all. I got up a little too fast and wound up tripping, that what you wanted to hear? Now you can go back inside the fucking room and keep ignoring us like you've been doing and we'll all get on with our lives," Bakura snarled. Marik was planning on saying more, but he stopped when he noticed the state Yuugi was getting himself into. The baby's face was turning red and blotchy, and Bakura knew that in a second he was going to start crying. He was not proven wrong. Yuugi opened his mouth in a brilliant scream and Marik almost skipped away from the child. This would not have been bad if it hadn't had the added effect of making Bakura fall once more.

He was close enough to the couch again to wind up on top of it instead of the floor. However, upon landing he felt his stomach begin to start churning. Too much moving and falling. Bakura had a second to turn his head as he broke put into another fit of dry heaves and retching. When this one ended, he felt even more exhausted. He settled weakly against the back of the couch and tried half-heartedly to rock the child in his arms and quite him. He felt dizzy and assumed that the fact that everything he looked at seemed fuzzy around the edges wasn't a good thing.

"You're sick," Marik announced.

"No dip, dipshit. The baby is sick. And since his primary caretaker has been me for the entire time we've had him, he gave whatever he's got to me. But don't worry, you can go run along now and do whatever the fuck it is you've been doing. We'll be fine in here, just fucking peachy," Bakura responded sarcastically. He was still greatly pissed at Marik, but he could not work up the anger to really give him a piece of his mind.

"Look, I'm not trying to just leave everything to you! I just… I can't take care of him!" Marik said. He actually had the nerve to sound upset by his lack of assistance. While Bakura still did not feel like he had the strength to punch him like he wanted, the excuse did anger him enough to think that storming off in an angry huff after a few choice-wounding words had been carelessly uttered. So he built up the stamina to push himself off the couch again and stood abruptly, Yuugi still crying in his arms. He knew the moment he did so that taking the action had been a bad choice, and very soon he would no doubt collapse once again. He actually fought to keep his free hand from flying to his head to ease the strain he found there and stop the room from spinning. He kept on with his plan.

"Oh don't worry, I know, you're just scared of him, right? Little baby Yuugi terrifies you. Pretty pathetic, if you ask me, Marik. No, it's probably a good thing you aren't helping out. I'm sure you would just screw him up in some way, make him into as much of a weakling as you are," Bakura sneered. He didn't need to look at Marik to know that his words had worked even better than he'd assumed they would. The sharp intake of air and void where a comeback would normally come painted enough of a picture. He still felt like shit and Yuugi was beginning to give him a splitting headache, but he grinned knowing that he'd scored.

He heard Marik get up off the couch, and the movement was so sudden he wondered if he'd pushed the blonde so far he would retaliate with violence. He didn't get to find out if that was the fact. His mouth felt parched and he thought he was going to fall again now. He did fall, but this time when he landed on the carpeted floor he also slipped into beckoning senselessness. The last thing he really remembered hearing was Yuugi, still crying, louder than ever.

When he woke up this next time, Bakura was in the bedroom and it was dark outside. He could hear the sound of crying in the room over. The brat was as loud as always, but the noise sounded fainter because of how far from it he was. The last time he'd really gotten to sleep in the bedroom was when Ryou had visited and he'd taken a nap. Since then, for convenience's sake, he'd been making his bed on the couch in the living room. Being in the bedroom now after such a long time away from it was strange and disorienting. With the continued cries edging him on, Bakura forced his worn body to stand and move to the door. Though the impromptu nap had helped his energy reserves some, he still felt worse now than he had this morning.

He didn't get very far into the hallway before he alerted Marik to his presence, which was a bit surprising, considering Yuugi's throaty screams. Marik was instantly in front of him, holding Yuugi awkwardly, like he was trying to keep the baby as far away from him as he possibly could while still holding on to him.

"What are you doing up? Get back in that bed now!" Marik demanded. Bakura quirked an eyebrow and swept past him. He settled gratefully down onto the couch.

"Bakura, get back in that bed and go to sleep this instant. You're sick and you need to sleep," Marik said again.

"I'm fine," Bakura argued.

"No you're not! Now go to bed!"

There it was again, that creeping note of hysteria in Marik's intonation. He wondered how long he'd been out and how long Yuugi had been crying like this. He ignored any sparks of concern he might have felt for Marik's well-being and mental health. The blonde deserved all of this, after all. That was what he told himself.

"How long has he been throwing that fit?" Bakura asked. Now Marik lost the anger he'd held and his expression transformed into weary desperation.

"I don't even know. He hasn't stopped, Bakura. I don't know what I'm doing! I tried changing him and giving him a bottle and some food, and all he does is keep crying! I-I don't know what's wrong! Am I hurting him somehow? Is he hurt?" Marik questioned. Bakura gave the baby a quick look-over. As loathe as he was to admit it, he was becoming accustomed to what type of crying signified what. Right now, Yuugi was upset, but certainly not hurt.

"He's fine. You're just not holding him right. Hold him close to your body so he can feel that you're there, and wrap your arms around him. He's probably just freaked out that you're going to drop him any second now," Bakura said. Slowly, Marik brought the baby closer to his body, and the suggestion did seem to work. Yuugi continued crying, but the sound of it was softened just a bit.

"Thanks," Marik said hoarsely. He was only more uncomfortable with the child this close. He bounced from toe to toe, and the agitated movements were beginning to give Bakura a headache.

"Will you just sit and calm down already!" Bakura hissed. Marik glared poison at him, but even the anger in the look was deadened a bit by how desperately unsure he looked.

"Sorry I'm not as good as you at all this!" he retorted.

"Maybe you would be, if you had actually tried to help instead of hiding in your room all day!" Bakura spat back. Speaking the words made his throat feel sore, and he shook his head to rid him of the nausea he was beginning to again feel.

Marik fumed. "I already _told_ you—"

"Yeah yeah, that you can't 'handle' any of this, and that you're going to 'mess him up' somehow."

"Godammit Bakura, can't you just stop mentioning that already?"

"No, I can't, because you're not helping to take care of the brat at all! You've just left everything for me to take care of, and you know damn well I'm not any better at raising a child then you!"

"You've already _proven_ you're better, I don't see how that has anything to do with—"

"Because you didn't give me much choice to do otherwise!"

"Because I can't take care of him! I am the _least_ qualified person to do so here!" Marik yelled, cutting off the rest of the argument. Even Yuugi had stopped his own screaming for a moment to listen to Marik's.

"You _know_ what my childhood was like. You _know_ how I was raised. You can't say that you don't, because I've _told_ you a lot of it. If you think for a second that I'm qualified to raise a child, then you're an idiot. Look at the man I had as an example! My father didn't give a damn about me, or any of us! He carved shit all over my back when I was just ten! And you want _me_ to help raise him?"

"You wouldn't do something like that," Bakura said, much quieter than before.

"No, I wouldn't, because I wouldn't ever subjugate another human being to the same pain I went through. But that doesn't mean that all of a sudden I'm some fucking father of the year. That doesn't mean that I know what's good parenting and what's not, and that doesn't fucking mean that I'm able to actually take care of another person without royally fucking them up!" Marik yelled. His eyes were wide and wild and Bakura knew that finally, this was the root of the problem they had arrived at here. While he wasn't good at figuring out most human emotions, he knew instinctively how to recognize fear, and right now Marik was deathly afraid of the responsibility that lay quietly in his shaking arms.

Now that he knew the reason behind Marik's insistence that he have nothing to do with the child, of course it made sense. He was worried he would turn into his father. It was a baseless worry. The fact that he _was_ worried proved that the blonde would never turn into the same man as his father, yet Bakura did not know how to state this fact. He'd never been good at giving comfort or understanding the complexities of human emotion and the many ways in which to settle them. And now Marik was still looking at him, expecting him to say something, whether it be to continue the fight or offer assistance in taking care of the baby, he didn't know, but it was obvious that something more was meant to happen here, and Bakura didn't know what.

He froze. What could he say? The only words of encouragement he could find were to say that so far Marik had done well, but even if he had meant them, they would not be taken seriously. So far, Marik had not messed the child up because he had not had anything to do with the child. And now when he did, the only thing the blonde had managed to do was allow Yuugi to cry nonstop. If he said something like that, it would not be taken well. His only other option would be to offer to take care of the baby, but he had done enough of that, he thought. He was still feeling like shit, and even if it was a terrible thing, it was amusing to him to watch Marik flounder like this. It seemed to him that Marik was always the one with the plan, the one that knew what to do, and to see him in a light different from this one provided Bakura with a vindictive pleasure that he felt he needed.

When it became quite apparent to both parties that Bakura was not going to say anything at all, Marik scowled and shifted the infant in his arms.

"This was why I didn't feel the need to tell you why I didn't want to take care of him," Marik quipped.

"You should know better than to expect me to be anything but myself. If you want someone to hold you and tell you it'll be all right, go visit my wimpy hikari and your yami. They seemed perfectly okay to let you sit around and mope," Bakura snarled.

"You—!" Marik started, but Bakura interrupted him by standing.

"No, I'm not finished with you yet. You're afraid that you'll turn into a monster like your own father, fine, whatever. I'm not going to sit around and list out all the reasons why that won't happen. You should already know that you're better than him, and if you don't yet, you aren't worth my time. What I'm going to tell you is that your behavior isn't fair. Not to the brat, or to me. _He_ needs someone who's going to be able to take care of him. And _I_ need someone to be my partner and help me out when I need it. That's what I thought your were, at any rate, but maybe I've just been blinded by your good looks this entire time and hadn't bothered to see what a coward you really were," he hissed.

"That's not fair," Marik said. Bakura actually laughed, though with how sick he still felt, it sounded more like a cough.

"It's not," he agreed, smirking. "Looks like we're both assholes, huh? But you're going to get a chance now to fix that. You get to prove that you aren't a coward, and that you can man up when you need to and help me out. Even if you have nothing to do with him after, you're going to have to take care of the kid right now. I can't do it like this. The way I feel right now, I'm about two minutes from passing out again."

"I can't—"

"Don't care, you're going to have to. I can't help you out. You'll just have to learn on your own how to be a better parent than your own. I'm going back to the room. Have fun, Marik," Bakura called out. He turned and left for the comfort of the bed. Though he left with a smile, even he felt a sour taste in the back of his throat with the way he was leaving Marik.

There'd been anger in the other's countenance, but there had also been that heady desperation, and he didn't like seeing such an emotion there in Marik's eyes. It didn't fit the brightness of the blonde's personality, and it certainly didn't do for the both of them to be so pessimistic all the time. He needed Marik because Marik was similar enough to him to understand, but different enough to be better. Marik still had a chance at getting everything he wanted out of life, while Bakura himself had to accept what he had now. Of course he was more than satisfied with the way things had turned out, but he wouldn't be if Marik continued to be so unsure and upset all the time like this. This wasn't the Marik that he wanted to be with. This was some timid and silly creature that couldn't see that everything was all right. This wasn't his Marik, and as Bakura finally climbed again into bed and wrapped himself tight in blankets to stave off the shivering, he hoped that the Marik he'd come to appreciate and respect would soon be back.

00000

He was not awake for the remainder of the day. The illness that Yuugi had given him knocked him out after the time he'd spent walking around earlier. He was sure that Marik must have had a difficult time taking care of the child, but he had not heard any of the screams that had no doubt been produced by the tiny being. Instead, he did not wake up again until the next day, and it was not because of Yuugi.

When Bakura awoke next, he felt worse than ever. He felt freezing despite the blankets he had wrapped around him, and he immediately felt sick to his stomach. His stomach clenched painfully, and if there had been anything in him, he would not have been able to keep it down. He groaned and thought about trying to make the trip to the living room for about a second before deciding it wasn't worth it.

He called out to Marik, but his voice was so weak and raspy even he could hardly hear it. He tried to clear his throat and winced at the rawness of it. It worked however, and when he called out to Marik again, the blonde came this time.

Yuugi was not with him, so Bakura could only assume that the baby was sleeping. When Marik saw him looking, he said the same thing.

"This is the first time he's been able to sleep all day. He's not handling this being sick thing any better than you are," Marik sighed. He sunk wearily down onto the bed and seemed to almost fall asleep right there. Bakura quirked an eyebrow at the blonde's suddenly subdued behavior. He had expected more fighting and yelling, to say the least. He figured the only reason that wasn't the case was how exhausted he knew Marik must be. He already knew how tiring watching the child could be, and that was when he'd been feeling well.

"I hope you get better soon," Marik said. With the way he was leaning against Bakura's side, the blankets muffled his face and the words were made almost inaudible. Bakura still wasn't sure he had heard them correctly as it was. Even mind-numbing levels of exhaustion shouldn't produce some level of kindness and concern from the other. More likely, his mood should have been even worse than before.

"I have no clue how you've been doing this. But I know that I can't. I don't care what you have to say, or how you're going to call me a coward—I am. I can't do this. I can't take care of this baby. I need you to get better, I need you to do this."

The part of him that Marik was leaning against shook, as did Marik himself. His voice sounded steady enough to Bakura's trained ears, but he knew that didn't mean anything. He knew how good Marik was at controlling his emotions. The fact that the blonde was preventing him from seeing his face now only made it more likely that he was witnessing the first breakdown he had seen from the other male in about two years now.

He didn't say anything. He felt too tired and sick to really bother even feeling the usual disgust that welled up in him whenever he witnessed this most pathetic of human emotions. He sat and waited for Marik to come back to his senses and get himself back under control, though he really wanted to do nothing more than go back to sleep. No matter how much Marik wanted him better so that he could once again resume his role of the child's caretaker, it wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Not with the way he was still feeling. The blonde would have to figure this out on his own.

Marik sniffled shakily and raised his head from the blanket. He did not look at Bakura as he stood. On a whim, Bakura grabbed his hand as he was on his way out.

"It's not that hard," he said. Marik was still not looking at him, but he could tell that the male was listening. "It's not that hard, and you're better than him." He let Marik go then. The blonde shifted and made to look at Bakura, but he stopped. He kept his head lowered and his face obscured by his disheveled hair.

"Yeah," he said. Then, "Just go back to sleep. Being sick doesn't do you any favors, you know, and I've already got one person to take care of. Don't need you getting any worse."

"I'm hot either way," Bakura responded with just a hint of his normal attitude about him. Marik scoffed and left the room without another word, but Bakura fathomed that he had managed to get an eye-roll out of him in the very least.

The next few days were not any better in terms of his health or Yuugi's. Aside from the few times a day Bakura was forced to leave his sickbed to grab something small to eat so that he did not starve, or to vomit back up everything that had gone in him, he mostly remained in bed. The sleep that he had entered so easily before was now plagued by nightmares, and when Yuugi worked up the strength to start howling despite his illness, it always kept him awake. Several times he had heard Marik throw something around in the house or curse out of frustration, but the times this occurred began to lesson as time passed.

When he finally felt well enough to leave the bedroom and head out into the living room Yuugi too was just beginning to return to good health. This was obvious the moment he saw the baby. Color had returned to his cheeks, and his cries were once again the strong, healthy, albeit extremely loud and irritating, screams of a young infant.

During the time he'd been out of commission, he was not all that surprised to see that Marik too had undergone some sort of change. He could see that the blonde was dead-tired and easily read the signs of fatigue in his body language, but there was something else there as well. When Marik moved, whether it be to change a diaper or hoist Yuugi into a chair to feed him, it was now with a confidence that had not been there before. His eyes too shone with a determination, and Bakura knew the moment he saw it that things had worked out. Marik had figured out the very thing he'd known all along: that he was, of course, a perfectly good parent. Bakura could not be more pleased. An intent and unperturbed Marik was a sexy Marik, and that was exactly how he liked the male best. Never mind the fact that neither of them looked their best at the moment. For now he was satisfied with having the boy he'd always been so interested in back.

"Told you it wasn't that hard," he quipped when Marik put Yuugi down for the night. For the first night in quite some time, both he and the brat were feeling almost back to normal. Even better, though completely exhausted, Marik seemed to no longer be angry with him. Rather, the blonde crawled into bed beside him with a tired, curling smirk that still managed to look provocative.

"Maybe not _that_ hard, but it wasn't as easy as you made it out to be," Marik responded. Neither of them felt any need to discuss Marik's fear in any real detail. They were finally getting back into their normal groove and patterns now, and there was no reason to mess anything up by recalling unpleasant bouts of uncomfortable and uncontrollable human emotion.

"Well of course, I am the best at everything I do," Bakura preened. Marik sided up even closer to him, and as his eyes closed ever so slightly and his grin widened, Bakura felt his libido, that until now had pretty much been nonexistent, begin to jump to life.

"Best at getting sick, too. You had to have been the most useless, pathetic thing I've ever seen. Worse than even the baby," Marik chucked sensuously, leaning closer. His lips were mere centimeters away from Bakura's own now, and his hot breath caressed them both.

"Careful now, I could still be infectious."

"Hmm, doubt it. I think the bug's finally died."

Fun as the banter was, Bakura ended it with an eager kiss. He pushed against Marik's body and the blonde quite easily submitted and allowed himself to be pushed back onto the bed. Bakura towered above him and smiled hungrily. He leaned in to close the gap between them again, and then a scream had the both of them jolting away from each other and on their feet before they even realized it was quite a bit different than Yuugi's normal cries.

Neither paused to think about it. After having watched the kid for about two weeks now, both were subconsciously primed to respond to the sound of his crying, different or not, and so both found themselves quite quickly in the guest room that more or less now served as Yuugi's. Once there, instead of rushing to his aid, they stood in the open doorway and stared at the boy. Boy. Not infant. For Yuugi was no longer a baby.

"I hada bad dream!" the crying, quite naked child wailed.

Marik was the first to come to his senses. Having been out of commission for about five days now, Bakura was a little slow on the uptake when it came to stopping the crying. Marik hesitantly approached the crying naked child and knelt down in front of him. The boy stopped rubbing his large purple eyes for a second and looked at Marik. His lower lips trembled uncontrollably in the same way it had when the kid had still been a baby and he was about to cry.

"There, there, it's okay now," Marik said awkwardly. He raised a hand and then it sort of remained there in the air, like he really wasn't sure where to put it. It might have gone on the child's back (that's how humans comforted one another, wasn't it?), but the kid's nakedness was a bit off-putting. He'd been at least wearing a diaper when Marik had put him to bed, but that obviously no longer fit after the kid's recent growth spurt.

"It was _scary_!" Yuugi wailed, and then the tears were coming again in big, heaving sobs. Marik looked at Bakura, asking silently for help here. He had just gotten used to taking care of the baby; this now was a whole new ballgame.

"Come on, stop crying. You're fine," Bakura said, also coming forward to kneel in front of the kid. Yuugi stopped crying for a second, sniffed wetly, and then threw himself at Bakura and wrapped his skinny little arms around him in a very wet hug. Bakura's eyes widened and his hand twitched at his side. The only thing that restrained him from throwing the child off him was Marik's hand on his arm and the knowledge that Atem would certainly not like it if he throttled his lover to death.

"Shh, it's okay, whatever you dreamt about is all over now. Nothing's going to hurt you," Marik said, trying to stifle the laughter that made to issue itself from his throat. Bakura was frozen solid.

"A-are you sure?" Yuugi asked, his sobs quieting. "Nothing's gonna get me?"

"Of course. And if anything bad comes, Bakura will protect you, right, 'Kura?" Marik questioned with a bit of a grin. Bakura remembered how to move, despite the creature still clinging tightly to his front, and he _glared_ at Marik.

"You-you promise?" Yuugi asked. He thought Marik would again take this one, but when the blonde didn't speak he looked down at his front and saw Yuugi looking up at him. Apparently, this was his time to shine now. He tried not to dwell too long on the horrid irony of how he was being forced to treat his once-enemy.

"Promise," Bakura said gruffly, trying to look anywhere but at Yuugi or Marik. Yuugi positively squealed when he heard the words, and those skinny arms tightened around Bakura surprisingly tightly for a kid that had to be at least four years old.

"Okay, time to let go and get back to sleep now!" Bakura said. He pried the child off him, and just to be sure something like this wouldn't happen again, backed away a bit and put Marik in between them.

"But I'm not tired," Yuugi said stated. Bakura looked at Marik and Marik looked at him. At once they both decided that no, this was not going to happen. The kid was going to sleep dammit, especially now that he was old enough to _be able to _sleep.

"Well before we talk about that, why don't we find you some clothes to wear," Marik intervened. This was agreed upon by everyone to be a good idea. Having a naked child running around the house was bad enough; having that naked child be Yuugi, of all people, was even worse.

In the end neither male (not so surprisingly) was in possession of any articles of clothing that would fit the young child. With nothing else to do and it nearing two in the morning, they got an old shirt out that neither could remember whom the owner had been and put the kid in that. Tomorrow it would be decided that they would go out once more and shop for the child.

After that, Yuugi was surprisingly no longer dead-set on remaining awake any longer. He had begun to yawn and his eyes to droop, and when the two males deposited him in the guest room on top of the pile or dirty clothes that still made up his bed (they were really going to have to find a better alternative), he fell asleep instantly. Were he a lesser man, Bakura might have broken out in grateful tears at the small miracle.

He and Marik headed back to their own room after, and though the last time they had been in this room Bakura had thought he might be getting some, it was quite obvious now that he was not. He had caught up on quite a bit of shut-eye due to his illness, but Marik was still very exhausted and in need of a good night's rest. So even though Bakura's libido protested, the two went to bed together and did nothing but sleep.

Though Yuugi was no longer an infant, his recent age jump did not prevent him from waking his guardians up very early in the morning. In fact, the only thing that had changed about the entire situation was that now the boy had the ability to walk, which was exactly what he did. Bakura nearly jumped out of his skin and the bed when he woke up to large purple eyes staring directly at him.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" he shrieked. Yuugi clamped his hands over his ears at the loud noise. He seemed surprised by the yelling, but otherwise showed no signs of remorse for his actions.

"I'm hungry," he said in way of answer. Bakura glared deeply.

"Go back to sleep, the sun's not even up yet," he dismissed.

"But I'm hungry! And I'm awake!" Yuugi protested.

"And I'm tired," Bakura argued. Yuugi puffed his cheeks out in a comical show of frustration, and then he opened his mouth up and let out a shrill, ear-splitting scream. Beside him, Marik jolted out of the bed like he'd been shocked and swung his head around wildly.

"All right, all right! I'll get you some damn food! Just shut up!" Bakura demanded. Yuugi did as told, and then he broke out into a huge, shit-eating grin and scampered out of the room.

"What the hell," Marik stated, aptly summing up the situation. Bakura nodded absently. It was not quite apparent that despite the age-change, this whole parenting thing was not going to get any easier.

And it didn't. Getting the kid to eat was a hassle enough of itself. No matter what Bakura suggested, the brat rejected it, claiming it looked "gross" or "icky". Eventually he was forced to part with a bowl of his cereal (okay maybe it was childish, but Count Chocula was his favorite, and it was so damn hard to get a hold of when it wasn't October!) that the kid only ate about two bites of being declaring that he was full. After that fiasco, Marik finally emerged from the bedroom looking a bit more awake and alert than before, and the two of them had to decide what they were going to do about the clothing thing.

It was obvious that both of them could not go, because unlike when Yuugi had been younger, there was no way to fit him on the motorbike and safely hide him from potential cops lurking around. That meant one of them would have to leave and go to a clothing store, but that too presented problems. Namely, without the kid there, how did one go about guessing correctly sized clothing? Along with that, both he and Marik decided that from recent events, Yuugi was going to continue growing sporadically older as the Shadow Magic wore off. That meant he would quickly grow out of any clothes they bought him and would need more. Neither he nor the ex-Tomb Keeper were very sociable creatures, and disliked leaving the house. It would be a pain in the ass going out to shop every week or so. So they decided to just buy future clothing as well. That led to the problem of it all not fitting on the bike. And then to top it all off, Yuugi began to complain and whine about wanting to go too.

"I guess we'll just have to take the bus," Marik shrugged. At the time, it seemed like a reasonable idea.

Then they actually got on the bus. After dealing with the usual idiocy other people provided, there was Yuugi himself to look after. It was suddenly like the kid had consumed an innumerable amount of sugar and had the constitution of the healthiest bastard in the world. It was hard to believe that the other day he had still been a sick little baby, and now he was literally climbing up every single seat on the bus and jumping on it. Several times he almost fell when the bus moved, and while it was hilarious, both he and Marik were continually given dirty glances whenever they got close to laughing at the child.

The trip to the store was worse. Yuugi went from wanting _all_ of the clothes to wanting _none_ of the clothes. Then he innocently wandered off at least three times, and Bakura and Marik were charged with the embarrassing task of going up to the head desk and asking to broadcast over the intercom that they had lost the kid. Each time they found him, Yuugi cried and sobbed for a good twenty minutes and clung tightly to each of them and refused to move until he was sure they were not going to disappear. And then he'd go and get lost again, and the process would repeat. By the time enough clothing had been bought, the two villains had spent four hours in the store and knew the employees at the front by name.

In some ways, raising a four-year-old was much easier than raising a baby, but in many it was just as bad, if not worse. For one, Bakura was only now realizing just how _glorious_ things had been back when the kid couldn't talk. Or move. Those had been the good days. Those had been the fan-fucking-_tastic_ days. Now the brat got into everything. Though he and Marik were finally able to get at least a few hours of sleep in most days, Yuugi's unfluctuating habit of entering their bedroom at the most inopportune moments (_without knocking!_) guaranteed that sleep was the only thing that happened between them.

It had been three weeks since he'd had sex last, and he was beginning to feel it. There had been days when he and Marik fucked at least once a day, most of the time more than that. It was a great way to pass the time before they went out for the night. Now they didn't even have the time to make out, much less fit in a quickie or really anything sexual in nature. The only time they had tried to get some time to themselves, Yuugi had come into the bedroom right as Marik had stuck his hands down Bakura's pants, despite the fact that the kid was supposed to be sleeping out on the couch. Luckily they had managed to get out of _that_ without any mental scarring on the part of either party. Since then they had not tried again, though mutual nights of being kept awake due to sexual frustration made it more than obvious that they both _wanted_ to.

As for even simple things like kissing, every time Yuugi caught them doing it (and he _always_ did), he went on for about an hour about how gross it was. After the third time dealing with one of his fits, both males had decided it wasn't worth it and laid off pretty much all physical contact.

It was on the ninth day of Yuugi's being four years old that Ryou and Malik decided to make another trip to their opposite's house. When he heard the knock on the door this time, Bakura was almost expecting to see them. No one else would have come to visit, and Atem didn't seem too interested in seeing how his magically shrunken lover was doing.

"Helo! You look much better than you did last time I saw you! How's little Yuugi doing?" Ryou greeted enthusiastically as he was led into the house, Malik trailing behind him like some malicious and crazed puppy. Yuugi had been in the kitchen with Marik, who was trying to get the kid to eat some weird vegetable shit. Bakura himself made a face at it the moment he'd smelled it earlier, and after seeing it, Yuugi had made the exact same one. Needless to say, if the irritated noises that had been coming from the kitchen for the past half hour were any indication, things weren't going so well with that task.

When Yuugi heard the sound of his name coming from the living room, he scrabbled out of his chair, overturning his food in the process ("Really? _Really?_ I _just cleaned_ this floor after the last mess you made!" from Marik) and came scrambling into the room. When Ryou saw him, he practically squealed.

"How adorable!" he said. Bakura snorted. Maybe he didn't look as ugly and squishy as he had when he'd still been a baby, but the kid was still far too snotty for his liking.

"You look like Bakky!" Yuugi exclaimed, pointing with all the enthusiasm in the world at Ryou. Bakura blanched. He hoped to the gods no one had heard…

"'Bakky' hmm?" Malik sniggered beside him. Oh no. No, no, no. Of all people, the brat just had to use that horrid nickname in front of Malik?

"Don't you even," Bakura snarled. Too late. Malik was now full out chortling, and despite himself, he felt heat creep up into his face.

"I think it's cute," Ryou said, but even he too was giggling a bit. Marik had apparently cleaned up the floor by that point and made an appearance in the living room with the rest of them. At that point, Yuugi swung his finger around and pointed at Malik.

"And you look like Makky!" he said, smiling. Marik too paled at the use of the nickname.

"Oh this is too much!" Malik roared. He began laughing like this was the funniest thing he'd heard in years, and Ryou joined in. Yuugi also began to join in and laugh with the other two, though of course he had no idea why he was doing this. Bakura and Marik fumed side by side in silence and cursed Yuugi in their minds.

"Well if the two of you are quite done, mind explaining why you're here?" Bakura finally interrupted.

"Oh, we just came by to see how you were doing," Ryou explained, finally getting himself back under control.

"If you don't want us here though, we can leave. I'm sure we can find something more fun to do then hang out with the three of you," Malik said suggestively. He sided straight up to Ryou's side and placed an arm around his waist and waggled his tongue at the two. Bakura's flush grew angrily as he was reminded of exactly what he was _not_ getting.

"Well good, get lost then," Bakura growled. Marik put a hand on his arm and quickly interrupted.

"Bakura," he chided. "They came here to see Yuugi, and maybe, if you stop being such an ass, they would like to watch him for a bit and give us a few moments of peace."

"Hey no one said anything about that," Malik said quickly, knowing right where his other was going with this, but not fast enough. Ryou sparkled with the suggestion and smiled sweetly.

"Of course we can watch him for a bit! All you had to do was ask, Bakura," he laughed. "It's no problem really. I'm sure they two of you could use a break." Bakura grinned and took control of the situation from this point on. He pushed Yuugi forward right up to Ryou and then grabbed a few things he figured the kid would need and shoved them into Malik's hands.

"Great! You two can just take him back to your house or whatever and we'll stay here and relax. Come back in five hours or so! Hell, take longer if you want!" He then got behind Ryou and started pushing him out the door, Yuugi following behind the two of them with wide, confused eyes.

"Now wait a minute! We didn't come here to grab the kid and leave for a few hours so the two of you can fu—!"

"Malik!" Ryou exclaimed, quickly moving to cover the taller male's mouth. "Not around the child! He can't be saying those words!" Bakura wisely decided not to mention that both he and Marik said those words all the time. In fact, just yesterday when Yuugi had chosen to repeat them after trying (unsuccessfully) to change his clothes on his own, the two had burst out into hysterical laughter.

"Hey, no one said anything about sex here. We're just going to catch some shut eye," Marik said, shrugging when Ryou shot him a look at his word-usage.

"Like I'm going to believe that!" Malik shouted.

"What they want to do is their own business, and I really think we should all stop discussing it _in front of the child!_" Ryou said loudly and pointedly.

"Yeah, how about you just take the kid and leave instead? We're burning valuable time here for all the 'sleeping' Marik and I are going to be doing," Bakura said. Both Marik and Ryou shot him a look.

"Bakura!" they both said.

"Look, no one believed that lie anyways, and if you want us to stop talking about the situation, then you best get the kid out fast! He's being corrupted by the second!" Again, both males shot him a dirty look, but finally, they stopped talking. Ryou left with Yuugi and a protesting Malik and Marik stood still and gave him a disapproving look. Like he cared about that.

The second the door clicked closed Bakura was on him in an instant. Marik slammed him hard up against the closest wall and in a second long spidery fingers were tearing his shirt off and tossing the useless garment somewhere on the floor. Bakura sighed and ground his hips against the other as Marik bent down and attacked his chest with teeth and lips and tongue. Against him he felt that Marik was every bit as hot and hard as he was. Maneuvering his body between the wall and Marik, he reached down to the other's pants and unbuttoned both the blonde's and his own, freeing them both.

They sated themselves right there in the living room, way too caught up in one another to actually remove the remaining clothing they wore and take their activities to the bedroom. They only bothered to the bed after lying on the floor began to get uncomfortable, and once there they went another round just because they could, and they needed to get as much time together as they could before Yuugi came back.

Of the six hours Yuugi was gone with Ryou and Malik, Bakura and Marik spent about an hour and a half of that time actually sleeping. Which was nice of course, but the activity they had engaged in earlier had been much more appreciated. Either way, when Ryou and Malik returned with Yuugi in tow, both males were satisfied and happy for the first time since Atem had shown up at their door with the baby.

"It smells like sex," Malik announced disgustedly upon entering the house. Ryou didn't even bother to scold him this time. He just punched the yami in the arm and smiled with satisfaction when the other male rubbed the sore spot.

"So did you have a good time?" Ryou asked Bakura. Yuugi was running around the house, looking for some crayons or something so that he could color Ryou a picture. Malik and Marik were apparently discussing something either extremely funny or extremely disgusting, based on the looks they kept exchanging. That left Bakura settled comfortably against the couch, with Ryou sitting next to him.

"Hell yeah. You would not believe how much I needed that," Bakura replied with a grin as he reminisced on the day's events. "Quickest amount of time it ever took me to get Marik in the mood. I mean, he always wants it just as bad as I do, but he likes to put up a fight and act all uppity and like he's better than me and can resist, you know? He's a pain in the ass. But only in a good way this time. I'd do this more often if it didn't mean I had to go without any for three weeks first."

"Um. That's… good," Ryou responded weakly. Bakura glanced at him and saw he looked a bit paler than normal. Ah. That wasn't what he had wanted to hear. Bakura still wasn't quite adept at pinpointing and understanding all of these silly human quirks yet. However, despite his newfound understanding, his grin widened and he continued to taunt his ex-hikari.

"Oh come on, it's not like Yuugi's anywhere near us right now. No need to act so modest, Ryou. If I know Malik at all—and given that there's not a great difference between him and Marik—then I know he's a horny bastard, only without all the mind games, am I right? I'm sure you're no great stranger to any of this," he said.

"Well…" Ryou hesitated.

"Yesss?"

"Well I don't go around talking about it! That's just crass!"

Bakura laughed and slapped the couch arm. "Oh Ryou, sometimes I can't remember why I ever hated you." Ryou flushed. Beneath his curtain of hair, he mumbled something that Bakura didn't quite catch. Whatever it was, he laughed again and sunk down further into the plush cushion. Yuugi had found the crayons and a spare piece of paper and now was working determinedly on scribble. With the focus he was exuding, it would at least be a few minutes before his attention span shifted to something else.

When Yuugi finished the picture, he proudly handed it over to Ryou, who accepted the terrible artwork with all the flourish of a diehard fan tearfully receiving a masterpiece from their favorite artist. To Bakura, the picture looked like it was squiggly lines, though apparently Ryou liked that crap. To each their own, he supposed.

After a tearful goodbye on the part of Yuugi (he had screamed for a good twenty minutes that he didn't want Ryou and Malik to leave, because they were his _favorites_; how that happened Bakura had no clue—the inner workings of the mind of a child were a mystery), Ryou and Malik bid their goodbyes and left. It was already quite late at night, so he and Marik gave the kid some food quickly and then told him it was time for bed. After spending another twenty or so minutes where Yuugi attempted to dress himself (he couldn't), the young child was finally settled down on the couch and out like a light.

"That was surprisingly easy," Marik observed.

"Kid had a busy day," Bakura shrugged. "Every other day he's just been cooped up inside the house. It's no surprise he conked out so quickly."

"Maybe we should take him out more. We could go to the park or something," Marik said.

"Yeah maybe," Bakura agreed, knowing that it would not happen, and the suggestion was merely for the pretense of pretending like they both knew what they were doing and cared. They stared at the sleeping child for a bit longer, and then Bakura turned and trailed his hand teasingly up Marik's arm as he headed to the bedroom.

"Coming?" he purred. Marik scoffed.

"Yeah right, like we're going to get lucky enough to actually do anything," he said, rolling his eyes. "Even if he's out right now, the moment we start getting anywhere he'll wake right the fuck up and come running into the room, going on about some nightmare he had or something. And I don't want to sit there and explain to him why we're both naked and 'hugging' each other."

Bakura pouted. Marik was right, but it was a little disheartening to be rejected after having spent such an _enjoyable_ time earlier.

"You really need to stop watching those horror movies with him," Marik added as an afterthought as he too headed for the room.

"He loves those movies!" Bakura protested.

"Oh yeah, just as much as Atem's going to love it when he gets his lover back and he's as much of a psychopath as you and Malik."

"You kidding me? He's too much of a goody-two shoe to get anywhere close to Malik's level of badassery, much less mine."

"Well they're not helping with his nightmare any."

"Sure they are! As long as he knows that none of that stuff is true, he won't be afraid of anything!"

"I've never once heard you tell him that stuff isn't real."

Bakura pretended to ponder this as he climbed into bed. "Huh. Must have forgotten that step," he mused. Marik cuddled up to his side for a second and wrapped his arms around him. A chaste kiss was placed upon Bakura's forehead from lips shaped into a smirk.

"You evil little prick," Marik admonished. Bakura kissed him quickly back. He was half expecting Yuugi to come bursting in any moment now.

"You know it," he agreed. Marik laughed shortly and released him. He scooted into his own spot on the bed and Bakura moved to his, and then after both getting comfortable, they fell into a one-of-a-kind uninterrupted sleep.

00000

When they woke up the next morning, Yuugi had changed again. Fortunately, he was not naked this time around. Apparently he had remembered where his clothing was stashed from when he'd been four and had retrieved an outfit while both Bakura and Marik had been sleeping. He looked to be twelve-ish, which, as both adult males were informed, he was.

"So. You know who we are, kid?" Bakura asked. The three of them were seated in the kitchen, eating breakfast. Yuugi was _still_ eating his cereal. The kid paused with his spoon halfway to his mouth and looked at the two of them a bit strangely. Earlier, Bakura and Marik both had surmised that since Yuugi was older now and more in control of his metal capacities, he might recognize them and remember his life before he'd been turned into a child.

"Well yeah!" Yuugi responded cheerfully. "You both have raised me since I was little!"

"That's not exactly what we meant," Marik said with a small frown. "Do you know us from anywhere else?"

"Nope! Don't think I do!" Yuugi responded, ever cheerful. Marik cast a side-glance at Bakura. He didn't need to say any words for Bakura to know exactly what he was getting at. It seemed like Yuugi wouldn't remember anything of his previous life until he returned to his original age. Bakura didn't know whether to be pleased or displeased with that. On one hand, it saved then from having to deal with a whole lot of awkwardness, but on the other, it meant that he didn't have the ability to perhaps hoist the kid off to Atem and have him wait out the rest of the gradual disappearance of Shadow Magic.

"So we're still stuck with him then," Bakura sighed. Marik elbowed him sharply, then leaned in close to his ear.

"Bakura, he's older now. You can't keep saying things like that or you're going to give him a complex," he admonished.

"Umm, can you guys not do that? It's pretty gross," Yuugi interrupted. Bakura and Marik turned from one another and faced the child instead, who was blushing a bit and ducking his head.

"We weren't kissing," Marik insisted, sounding a little flustered himself.

"It _looked_ like you were gonna," Yuugi said, shrugging and taking another bite of cereal.

"Well we weren't," Marik said again. "I was just telling Bakura something."

"Yeah, and _then_ you were gonna kiss him!" Yuugi said. He finished he cereal and drained the bowl of milk in one huge gulp, then placed it proudly on the table and smiled at them.

"I already said that I wasn't!" Marik argued.

"Yeah you were! I saw!" Yuugi fought back, frowning now. His bottom lip jutted out in an impossibly annoying way as he pouted. Bakura raised a hand to his head and massaged his temples as Marik apparently refused to learn and opened his mouth to fight against the hugely immature and stubborn pre-teen once more.

"Okay enough! He wasn't going to kiss me, got it? And because of you, he probably won't be doing so anytime soon! So now everyone can just shut up! If I hear another word on the subject, I'm sending you both to your rooms!" he growled before Yuugi could prepare another no doubt clever rebuttal. Marik scoffed and sank back in his chair with his arms crossed, and Yuugi stared at him wide-eyed, either impressed or terrified by the show of anger. Bakura liked to think it was the former.

For about a minute there was glorious silence in the house. The kind of silence that had once pervaded everything, the kind that Bakura had taken for granted before a child came and destroyed that same divine silence and then kicked its sorry, tattered ass out to the curb for good measure. It was a good silence. It was a silence every bit as good as the little break he and Marik had gotten from taking care of the kid the day before. Maybe even better. But, like all good things, it came to a pitiful death as Yuugi apparently got over his fear or whatever and smiled brightly.

"So what are we gonna do today?"

Bakura groaned. Marik stopped pouting and seemed to think about the question.

"Well we could go to the park," he suggested.

"Are you serious?" Bakura asked, lifting his head from the table where he'd left it.

"We just said yesterday that we should take him out more. Why not head down to the park then? It's as good a place as any," Marik said.

"'We' didn't say anything! You brought it up! And I didn't think you were serious!"

"Honestly Bakura, you're being a drama queen. It's just the park. He can go off and play with the other little kiddies, and we can go for a walk. No unnecessary human interaction, and lots of fresh air, which we both could use."

"That sounds horrible! And I don't need fresh air! I've dealt with being stuck inside a golden ring for centuries—I think I can stand being cooped up a little longer until he turns back to his normal form, thank you!"

"You don't need to fight!"

Both males stopped doing just that and looked at Yuugi, who had interrupted them. He flushed from the intense scrutiny and lowered his head a bit in a show of modesty.

"I uhh, I don't wanna go outside. I don't like it much. I'd rather just stay in here and play games or something," he said.

"You want to play games? Like what, a card game?" Bakura questioned eagerly, hoping for anything that would get him out of going outside. He hated going outside when he didn't need to. Years and years of remaining locked in a tiny little prison had taken away the love of the outdoors he used to harbor when he'd first been alive. And besides, the pale skin he'd inherited from Ryou burned way too easily for any trip outdoors to be a simple one. If it was sunny, that meant sun block, and lots of it.

Apparently, Yuugi very much wanted to play a card game. His face lit up as if Bakura had just suggested they play… well, a card game, and he nodded eagerly.

"Oh yesyesyesyes! Oh I want to play one I want to play one I want to! Can we Bakura can we? Oh can Marik play too? Pleeaasseee?"

"Yeah, sure, we'll play," Bakura said with a smirk. Score one for him in remaining indoors. It was really a lucky break that Yuugi was a loser even at such a young age. No wonder the kid had spent more of his teen life smarting from ass-kickings than not.

"Oh Marik will you play too? Please please please please please please please please—"

"Yes, I'll play! Just stop that already!" Marik groaned.

"Yaaaaayy!" Yuugi shouted. This time Marik slammed his head against the table.

"I'll just go get the cards then," Bakura announced. Yuugi cheered again and another moan rose from Marik.

He disappeared down the hallway into the bedroom. Both his own and Marik's decks were tucked away nicely in a drawer. Bakura looked at them both for a bit, feeling nostalgic. He and Marik dueled once in a while just to keep their skills up, but it happened a lot less frequently as more and more time passed. Once in a while they went to various tournaments, but those got a bit boring when undoubtedly one of them was always crowned winner. It had been at least two months since he'd last looked at his deck. A very far cry from the past, when he'd kept it on him at all times. It was a bit boring living the life of a semi-reformed villain. There just wasn't anyone left to really do evil to. Sure he could annoy Atem and the rest of the Friendship Gang, and even Kaiba was good for a laugh or two, but things were pretty slow otherwise. He shuddered when he realized he was slowly being tamed. He would have to talk to Marik about that. Between the two of them, it shouldn't be that difficult to come up with a plan for world domination.

Smiling a bit, he grabbed both decks along with the extra cards they had. They could put together a pretty good deck for Yuugi to use with these. He was actually a bit happy that they were doing this after all. It felt good to be thinking again of all the ways he could destroy the little midget's lifepoints. There had been far too long a gap between now and the last time he'd done so.

When he brought the cards out into the living room, Yuugi's eyes just about popped out of his small head, and his mouth started flapping a mile a minute. Marik sent a glare at him.

"Oh yes, this is _much_ better than doing something healthy and going outside!" he snapped.

"It will be," Bakura responded sanguinely. He tapped Marik on his cheek and steered Yuugi over to a spot on the floor.

"Yuugi. If you want to duel, then stop talking," he commanded. Yuugi zipped up with comic compliance, and Bakura grinned again in Marik's direction. He patted a spot on the ground beside him and Marik came on over and joined the two on the floor. Bakura handed Marik his deck and cards.

"Okay, now before we can do anything, we need to make a deck for you to use. We'll start you out with a good one, and from there you can modify it as you see fit, got it?" he asked Yuugi. Yuugi nodded. Bakura began rifling through his extras and picking out cards he thought would work well together with Marik's, keeping the blonde's own strategies in mind. Marik leaned over close to him and made note of the cards he'd already picked out, then started to search through his as well.

They worked together in silence, needing nothing more than to see the types of cards they were deciding on and what effects they possessed to know what would fit in best with the beginning deck. A few times one of them would suggest a card, only for the other to lean over and suggest a better one. Yuugi watched them the entire time, bright purple eyes going from body to body and the cards they shared, trying to figure out just what it was they were communicating with each other. When they finished the deck, Bakura was satisfied that even the weakest of duelists would stand a fair chance at victory, as long as they knew how to execute combos. And so with that finished, they handed it over to Yuugi and dueled.

Bakura went first, since he'd been the one to suggest the game. Twelve-year-old Yuugi was not as good at dueling as regular Yuugi, and even regular Yuugi wasn't as good as a Yuugi that had Atem in his head, whispering to him strategies. Bakura won the duel rather easily and without much effort on his part, but he could sense behind the furrowed eyebrows and calm demeanor that this child Yuugi was still learning the deck and coming up with new ways to use it. After he went, it was Marik's turn to duel against the child. He too won, but not before Yuugi dealt a substantial blow to his lifepoints in a very nice combo.

Before dueling again, Yuugi was allowed to search through the extra cards and make whatever changes to the deck he saw fit. Bakura was rather interested to see what he would do, but the child decided to show that, despite his seriousness and maturity while dueling, he was still a child after all, and he made both Bakura and Marik go into a different room while he modified the deck, claiming that it would "help him win better."

"So, not such a bad idea after all, is it?" Bakura questioned. Marik was seated upon the kitchen counter, leaning back against the cabinets, feet swinging back and forth in the air. Bakura stood next to him, arms crossed, a smirk on his face. He wasn't sure how many countless times Marik had told him not to do the very same thing the blonde was doing now (apparently his ass germs would ruin the food), but he wasn't about to get into an argument about it just yet. He was enjoying himself, and the afternoon was as peaceful of one as they'd gotten since Yuugi had come to them.

"No, not a bad idea at all. It's no wonder the kid got to be as good at the game as he is. I mean, Atem helped him a lot, but you can see that he knows what he's doing, even at this age. I wouldn't be surprised if he was able to beat us if he had his own deck," Marik responded easily.

"He's not that good," Bakura said, rolling his eyes.

"Aww, did I wound your pride?" Marik cooed, chuckling. He kicked Bakura softly in the side.

"Actually, you did," Bakura said. He turned toward the blonde and tried to pout as best he could, but he really couldn't get his face to form the right expression. He'd never had much use for it in the past, and it didn't come easily to him now. Marik's soft chuckling moved to full out laughter.

"I'm sorry, I forgot how angry you get after you have your ass kicked," he laughed.

"No more so than you in the same scenario," Bakura pointed out. Marik swooped down off the counter and kissed him. Bakura melted into it eagerly, and threaded his fingers through the other's blonde hair.

"We'll have to thoroughly trounce him to make up for all that humiliation," Marik said.

"But of course," Bakura purred, and joined their lips together once again.

Lips connected and moved and tongues dances against one another while busy fingers made discoveries, and Bakura was just beginning to think that if Yuugi kept taking as long as he was, maybe they'd have time for something of a different activity. If Marik's eagerness in the makeout and the way he already seemed to be attempting to rid Bakura of his shirt were anything to go by, then his thoughts were in the exact same place—namely, a spot much further down his body that was starting to rouse. However, as luck would have it, Yuugi finished and called out both their names, the only warning they had before the kid waltzed right on into the kitchen like he owned the place.

It was profoundly amusing, Bakura thought, to see the way Yuugi went from being the quintessential poster child for happiness to cringing away with his lips drawn tight and his hands up to ward away the evil image in less than two seconds flat. Or it would have, had he not been busy attempting to smooth down his shirt from the rumpled state Marik had gotten it in, and hoping that his lips weren't bruised from all the kissing that had been going on. Beside him, Marik was running his fingers frantically through his hair and making it into more of a mess than Bakura had done on his own.

"So, um, you ready with that deck?" Marik asked after a horribly long stretch of awkward silence where Yuugi continued to stare at the two of them like they'd just told him they'd killed his pet dog in some manner of ritualistic sacrifice. Yuugi nodded brokenly.

"Great! So let's get to the duel then!" Marik cheered. He left the kitchen as fast as he could. His cheeks were still a bright red beneath his tan. Yuugi stared at him as he went.

"Buck up kid, two dudes getting it on isn't the worst of what you'll see in your life," Bakura said to him as he too left the kitchen, stopping for a moment to uncharacteristically ruffle Yuugi's hair as he passed by him. It was a strange urge, but he didn't think too much into it, and sniggered a bit as the movement broke Yuugi out of his trance with a strangled cry of "Hey!"

Crisis nearly avoided by saving grace of a hair-ruffling, the second round of duels commenced. Yuugi and Bakura dueled first again whilst Marik acted as a referee of sorts and kept track of their lifepoints. From the get-go it was obvious that with this improved deck, Yuugi thought he would do a lot better. He did, but it still wasn't enough to beat Bakura. He lost again, and this time the defeat seemed to dampen his spirits. When Marik took over to duel him, the boy sorted lifelessly through his cards and wore a frown right up until his lifepoints overtook Marik's own.

Bakura knew the second Marik decide to throw the game. He had just pulled the Mystical Beast of Serket and Temple of the Kings combo, yet he prepared to place neither of the cards down on his turn. When he still did not do so on his second turn, Bakura knew that he was going to let Yuugi win. Though the kid had more lifepoints at the moment, with the combo Marik had, the duel could easily turn directions. Yuugi of course did not know that, and as it was he was crowing and celebrating as if he'd already won. His cards were actually shaking in his hands he was so excited. When he did win, he jumped off the floor and let loose a triumphant yell of delight. Marik smiled a bit and calmly put his hand away and stood up as well.

"Congrats," he said. "That was a pretty good duel."

"I won! I actually won! Oh Bakura, did you see?" Yuugi exclaimed eagerly.

"Yeah I saw," Bakura said. He looked at Marik as he said it, letting the blonde know the true meaning of his statement. He knew Marik had allowed himself to lose, but what he didn't know was why.

"It's pretty late, so why don't we go get something to eat and watch a movie or something?" Marik suggested, ignoring the implied question.

"But I wanna duel more! I'm sure I can win again!" Yuugi protested.

"Maybe tomorrow. You need time to think of a different strategy, don't you? If you use the same one over again, your opponent will get wind of it and come up with a way to beat it," Marik advised. Yuugi's face lost its childish charm as he turned the advice over in his head, then nodded.

"You're right," he said, suddenly sounding far too old for his age. "I should go through my deck and think of better ways to use it. Then I'll duel you guys again! Tomorrow, I bet I'll beat even you, Bakura!" And then, just like that, the childish enthusiasm was back, and Yuugi darted away into the room he was using as his own to no doubt go over his deck. Bakura picked up his own deck and the extra cards and followed Marik back into their own room.

"So why did you let him win?" Bakura asked once he had shut the door. Marik shrugged.

"Felt like it, I guess," he answered. "Did you see how happy he was when he thought had had me on the run? I guess I just didn't want to see him get all depressed again."

"He's more quiet when he's depressed," Bakura mused.

"That he is," Marik agreed, "But honestly, is it really so bad to let the kid think he did well?" Bakura thought about it, and then thought about the same feeling that had led him to ruffle the kid's hair earlier. He decided that even if this was the miniature version of the brat who'd caused him so much trouble in the past, no, it wasn't that bad.

"So can we watch a horror movie then?" he asked with a grin.

"We literally _just_ had a talk about this," Marik groaned.

"But the kid loves them!"

"Bakura."

"Hey Yuugi, you love those movies I let you watch, don't you?" Bakura called out.

"I do!" Yuugi responded from the next room over.

"See?" Bakura questioned. Marik sighed and relented, and so after ordering some take-out food, the three of them settled down onto the couch and watched another of Bakura's favorite gory movies.

00000

Now that Yuugi was twelve, things were a bit easier to deal with than before. Both older males were now able to again return to a normal sleeping schedule, and although they did not have the ability to do anything other than sleep, that fact in and of itself was enough to tide them over. They both figured that it couldn't be long now until Yuugi returned to his normal form.

As well as allowing Bakura and Marik to sleep for as long as they desired, Yuugi was also not quite so picky with his food as he had been when younger. He still didn't want to touch most of Marik's weird vegan foods, but Bakura couldn't blame him any for that. _He_ didn't want to touch any of it, either. Altogether, twelve-year-old Yuugi was also a lot less loud and rambunctious than his younger self. While he still got into fits of noisy excitement over the most mundane and asinine of things, he now knew how to control himself after five or so minutes of freaking out.

However, Yuugi was still Yuugi, and a cheerful, hyperactive twelve-year-old was bound to annoy two villains who until now had had only themselves for company, no matter how well mannered that twelve-year-old was compared to his peers. Every day the kid demanded to be entertained in some way. Gone were the days when he could just be locked in a room, or handed a pad of paper and some crayons and told to go wild. This Yuugi needed to be talked to and looked after, and he desired playmates in the games he chose to play. When it wasn't dueling, it was something else he was interested in. He found several different sites where he could play games online, and also dug out of the spare bedroom the Nintendo Wii Bakura had stolen on a whim that he and Marik had only played a handful of times. From sun up to sun down, Yuugi was playing (and usually winning) a game of some kind.

"I swear, tomorrow I am getting him out of the house and he is going outside to play with some kids his own age. It's not healthy for a person to focus on one thing for so long," Marik said quietly from the kitchen doorway. In the living room, Yuugi was, unsurprisingly, playing some solo game with regular playing cards. Bakura didn't even bother putting up an argument this time. Even if it meant he would have to venture outside as well, he agreed completely. This was getting annoying.

However, the next day found Yuugi no longer in his twelve-year-old form, but in the body of a much older teenager. When Bakura and Marik first saw him, they were fooled for an instant into thinking he had regained his normal form. The boy looked exactly like the Yuugi they were used to, but apparently was not quite there yet. When they talked to him about his memories, he did not remember them in any way differently than he saw them now.

"It's got to happen soon," Marik said. "The changes are coming sooner and sooner now. By the next one, I bet he'll be normal."

"And then we can finally have our own lives back," Bakura agreed. Yuugi's transformation back to normal could not happen soon enough. He was really starting to miss sex.

This Yuugi acted much the same way as the twelve-year-old one, but with less emphasis on the playing of games. He was still obsessed with them and pestered Bakura and Marik to join him with them, but it was more subdued than the younger Yuugi had been. It seemed like this older teen was more concerned with the fact that he didn't have any friends, and desired to make some—if for nothing else than other people to play his card games with.

Suddenly it wasn't so hard to get the kid to go outside. He volunteered to go to the store to pick up groceries for Marik's crazy food and even volunteered to pick up take-out when one of them could have just as easily driven the motorbike. Apparently Yuugi thought that if he looked enough, he would eventually find someone that would befriend him. Bakura didn't really pay much attention to how this was working out for him, but he assumed not so well. The kid never returned back to the house with anyone but himself.

Because of Yuugi's tendency to leave for random reasons and not come back for quite a few hours, when he walked in through the front door on the fourth day after his most recent growth spurt, Bakura didn't pay much attention to him at first. He and Marik both were relaxing together on the couch. While it was true that Yuugi had been gone for quite some time, it never failed that they moment they would start getting closer to one another, the kid would return back home. Meaning that relaxing on the couch had been the only thing they'd been doing, and would continue to be until all signs of Shadow Magic finally wore off the midget.

Marik was the one who actually took notice of him. Once he'd gotten hang of the whole parenting thing, Marik was much better at it than he. In fact, Bakura was more surprised that he himself had done as well as he had. For someone who just couldn't wrap his mind around the most complex of human emotions and motivations, he hadn't done too bad raising the brat. However, when the two of them heard the door open and Yuugi walk inside, Bakura had continued to stare at the television screen, and so he didn't see the condition the sixteen-year-old was in until Marik called his attention to it.

"What the fuck happened to you?" Marik asked, all eloquence he might have had otherwise lost in his surprise. Bakura turned around just in time to catch Yuugi freeze on his way into his room. He noticed how tense he was before anything else, and that alone spoke measures to Bakura. The boy had been hoping to sneak away before he could be caught. That was interesting.

"Nothing. I'm fine," Yuugi responded with a hell of a lot less enthusiasm then he usually spoke with. Bakura picked up on that as well.

"Get in here," Marik commanded, leaving no room for any protests. Yuugi didn't even think to try doing so. With a resigned sigh, he slumped into the living room, where Marik turned on the light and Bakura actually took notice of his appearance for the first time.

His pants were scuffed and dirty and it looked like his shirt had ripped in several places. Yuugi himself was sporting an eye that had swelled completely shut, and his lip was bleeding. It was quite obvious that someone had thoroughly kicked the shit out of him.

"Who did this?" Marik questioned darkly.

"No one really…" Yuugi responded, his voice tapering off to a whisper as his still visible eye darted everyone but near Marik.

"Uh huh, just a case of you beating yourself up, huh?" Bakura questioned sardonically.

"No! Um, I wasn't beat up or anything, I just…"

"Tripped?" Bakura finished. "Yeah I've known a few guys to look like that after a bad stumble. Obviously that's what happened here. No need to question him any further, Marik, he just tripped, don't worry."

"Yeah I know he's lying. I didn't need you being an ass to let me see that," Marik responded irritably. Bakura scoffed but kept quiet.

"So what happened? I want to know the truth, Yuugi."

"Um." Yuugi hesitated, looked around the room for about the fourth time, then apparently came to the conclusion that there was no way for him to escape, and with another resigned sigh faced Marik. "Well I went down to the arcade earlier today. They had a new game in and I was really excited to play it! It was really cool too, and I got the highest score on it without even really trying—"

"That's great, Yuugi, but get to the point," Marik said. Yuugi flushed a bit, the color hardly visible against his bruised cheeks.

"Well, when I ran out of money I left the arcade and thought I'd head back home. But when I left there was a group of guys there, and they said they wanted to talk to me about how well I'd done on the game. So I followed them into this alley, and then they said that they wanted all of my money. I told them I didn't have any more, but they didn't believe me," Yuugi explained.

"And so they did this to you?" Bakura asked. Yuugi nodded.

"You remember what they looked like?" Marik asked.

"Not… really," Yuugi said. He was lying. The kid was too nice for his own good, even after being raised by two of the worst villains alive. It was almost incredible if it didn't make Bakura want to vomit.

"All right," Marik said simply. Yuugi looked startled that it was over already.

"That's it?" he asked.

"We've got all we need," Bakura responded.

"'We?'" Marik asked, frowning.

"You think I don't want to go?"

"I hadn't thought you would," Marik admitted.

"Go where?" Yuugi questioned, obviously confused here.

"Nowhere. Why don't you go take a shower or something and treat those injuries? It'd be a bitch if they got infected, and you should probably put some ice on that eye of yours too. We'll be back in just a few," Bakura answered.

It was a credit to just how innocent Yuugi was that the boy didn't realize what his and Marik's true intent was. Instead of asking any more questions, like what they were going to do or why they had even wanted to know who'd beat him, Yuugi did exactly as Bakura suggested and left for the shower. Bakura and Marik waited until they heard the water running before they both got up and threw on their coats.

They both knew the way to the arcade, having gone a few times when they'd gotten too bored with hiding out inside the house. It was late enough that the majority of teens who'd come to play the games had already headed home. Of course, the teens and the arcade itself were not what they'd come for, so the lack of witnesses only made things easier. Bakura and Marik found the group of boys that had no doubt been the ones to beat Yuugi rather easily. They located the closest alley they could find, and voila.

There were three of them, highschool kids it looked like, with spiked hair and piercings that were meant to look intimidating and scary. Bakura was not impressed. The three were actually pretty sub-par as far as bullies went, but their strength had been enough to take care of Yuugi. Not that that had to have been much of a challenge.

Having found their prey, Bakura and Marik attacked quickly. They fought harmoniously without having to say a word to the other. Had this been a regular fight, Bakura might have had more fun taunting his opponent and taking the time to truly show off his and Marik's abilities to work together as a team. But this was not about putting on a show. This was a beatdown, pure and simple, retribution for the injury that had been caused.

If someone had ever told Bakura that he would be avenging the shrimpy little midget that had caused him so much trouble, he'd have tortured them slowly for even thinking such a ludicrous idea. But here he was, doing just that. It was strange, feeling a protective anger for someone other than Marik, but he felt it all the same. Yuugi was sort of like his kid in a way, and while he was still hugely annoying and his presence extremely inconvenient, in some way he was also a part of Bakura. And Bakura did not taking kindly to any injuries or insults done to himself or something he laid claim to. He knew that Marik felt the same from the controlled anger in each punch he threw at the thugs, and in the tight way he'd spoken to Yuugi to ferret out the truth. The two of them must have really been going soft, to come to care even an ounce for the well being of their enemy. The thought made him laugh. It was the only sound he made during the entire fight.

Well, massacre would have been a better word. They hadn't killed the highschoolers (three counts of premeditated murder was _not_ something either he or Marik needed right now, not after they'd so recently gotten the cops off their trail for that little _accident_ in the past), but they sure as hell didn't look pleasant. Marik brought out a towel he'd had the forethought to bring with him and calmly wiped the blood off his hands, then handed it to Bakura, who did the same before pocketing the cloth. They walked away as calmly as they'd come.

Yuugi was asleep in his room when they got back, which was fortunate. It meant that there wouldn't be any further questions, and in the morning they could all just ignore this little happening. Marik threw the towel out and sat down on the couch with a sigh.

"Well I feel better now," he announced. Bakura took a seat next to him.

"Premeditated violence does do that to a person," Bakura mused.

"Kid needs to stop being such a target. He got beat up all the time before all this Shadow Magic crap too, didn't he?" Marik questioned. Bakura nodded absently.

"I don't think there's ever been a time in his life where he hasn't gotten his ass handed to him on a daily basis. I might have even done it once." It sounded like something he would have done, but he couldn't remember now if he had or hadn't. The thought was far away, estranged by the situation he was in now. How very different, fighting _for_ the kid instead of fighting against him.

"Maybe we should teach him how to defend himself," Marik said.

"It couldn't hurt any. Atem might even thank us for it," Bakura shrugged.

"What the hell. Why hasn't _Atem_ taught him? He needs to know that you can't just face the world being amazing at card games! There are people out there who don't give a shit about any of that, and Yuugi needs to be prepared to face them! He can't just go through his life getting stepped on by everyone," Marik fumed. Bakura shifted on the couch and leaned against the blonde's side, hoping the unfamiliarity of contact would distract him from his sudden anger. It worked, and Marik looked down at him, somewhat ruffled.

"I'm just saying he needs to learn to not be a pansy, is all," he said.

"I agree," Bakura said. "He needs to grow a backbone, and if Atem doesn't want the job, then maybe we should take it. Otherwise this won't be the last time he needs someone else to fight his battles." Above him, Marik's mouth twisted.

"You actually do care, don't you? I could have sworn you were just in it all for the fun of the fight."

"Well that was a bonus, but what the hell, the kid's grown on me, irritating little pest that he is," Bakura sulked. Marik laughed.

"Me too," he said, eyes sparkling. "I can't stay too angry at the dear ex-Pharaoh for forcing this on us. It wasn't that bad, once you got the hang of it."

"If you're about to suggest we adopt or some shit like that, I'm leaving you," Bakura warned.

"Oh gods no. One kid is more than enough, thank you very much," Marik said, pretending to shudder at the thought. Bakura nodded his assent, then yawned.

"All that ass-kicking made me tired," he pouted.

"Might as well go to bed then. Maybe in the morning he'll be normal again," Marik murmured, yawning himself as well. Bakura nodded again against Marik's chest. Marik blew hot air into his face, making Bakura crinkle his nose and withdraw from his rather comfortable position atop the other. Free from his weight, Marik got off the couch and headed toward the bedroom. Bakura sighed as he left the comfortable embrace of the couch, but got up and followed.

00000

Yuugi did not go back to normal the next day. He was the same sixteen-year-old he'd been the night previously, with no memories of Bakura and Marik being anything other than his guardians/kind of parents? Fortunately, he did not seem very keen on bringing up last night, and so the subject was only breached when he asked how his eye looked, which was still very swollen.

Yuugi decided that today he would remain indoors with the two of them, and so the three males spent the day lazing about watching movies, playing card games, and eating shitty takeout. It was honestly one of the best days Bakura could remember since inheriting Yuugi from Atem.

It was also the perfect end to the whole Shadow Magic saga. The very next morning, Yuugi was indeed back to normal, which the entire neighborhood found out when the teen woke up screaming, apparently having remembered everything that had gone on the month and a half or so he'd been with Bakura and Marik.

"I walked in on you two having sex so many times! How _could you_ let me see something like that?" Yuugi screamed. After having ran into the spare bedroom to see what the big deal was and realizing from the petrified look on Yuugi's face that yes, he was indeed back to normal, all three males had wound up in the kitchen. Where this was the subject that Yuugi was obsessing over the most.

"You didn't walk in on us having sex!" Marik snapped.

"Yeah, we never got that far. You are the biggest cock-block in the world," Bakura muttered. Yuugi covered his ears and went on about how he didn't need to hear any of this. Bakura and Marik, unimpressed by all the drama, waited patiently for him to get over his little fit and attempt to act normal again. After about three minutes, Yuugi hesitantly uncovered his ears and looked at them.

"Better now?" Bakura asked.

"Kind of. I'm still a little freaked out about all of this," Yuugi admitted. Marik shrugged.

"Well you know who to take it up with. Atem's the one who brought you here, it's not like we begged and pleaded to take care of you," he said.

"I can't believe he just handed me over like that," Yuugi said.

"I told you he was an ass," Bakura interrupted. Yuugi glared at him about as much as he was able to. It had less of an effect on him than Ryou's glaring did.

After that very unfruitful endeavor, Yuugi focused himself on Marik. "Marik, could you please call Atem and let him know that I'm back to myself now? No offense, but I'd like to return home."

"Sure. Believe me, we want to return to our lives just as much as you do," Marik replied, smirking. Bakura returned the look and Yuugi grew pale and shuddered, making both villains laugh. Still chuckling, Marik wandered away a bit to grab ahold of the phone and call Atem, which left Yuugi alone with Bakura. The kid was every bit as hesitant now as he'd been the night he'd gotten beat, looking everywhere but at Bakura himself. Bakura rolled his eyes and decided that was enough of this coy beating around the bush shit.

"You were one hell of a brat, you know that?" he mused. Yuugi appeared startled at being addressed so freely, and without any menace at all on Bakura's part. While it was true that it had been a while since Bakura had posed as any real threat to any of the Friendship Gang, the only ones out of them he spoke to on a somewhat regular basis was the high and mighty Atem himself, and Ryou. Malik totally didn't count. He'd always been an asshole. But it stood to reason that Yuugi would still flinch like he expected for Bakura to any second now whip out the Sennen Ring he no longer possessed and send him to the Shadow Realm just because he felt like it. It was nice to know that he still had his reputation.

"Yeah, well you weren't a very good parent you know," Yuugi said. Bakura rolled his eyes again. Was that the best he'd been able to come up with? He already _knew_ that.

"Marik and I were damn better parents then you were a kid. He took care of you when you were sick, and you got _me_ sick. All you ever did was cry and yell and keep us up all night," Bakura pointed out. Yuugi blushed to the tips of his ears.

"That's what babies do," he mumbled. "It wasn't my fault."

"Still, Bakura insisted, "my argument remains valid. You only kind of got cool when you became twelve, and even then you were annoying as hell." Yuugi mumbled something that Bakura didn't quite catch, as Marik interceded the conversation with news of Atem's quick arrival.

"So you've got maybe twenty minutes with us, and then things can finally go back to normal," Marik finished. Bakura sighed loudly and Yuugi looked very grateful. Then both males groaned as they realized that meant the awkwardness would continue on for another twenty long minutes.

"So… um…" Yuugi started, and then got no further than that. All three persons remained silent, looking at each other around the table.

"Shit, let's go play a card game. Bet I'll still beat your ass even if you do have all your memories back," Bakura suggested. Yuugi's eyes lit up as brightly as they had the first time Bakura had mentioned dueling.

"I'll go get the cards then," Marik laughed and disappeared from the room. Bakura and Yuugi located to the living room, and when Marik returned and passed out each person's respective deck, they laid down some ground rules.

"We'll only have time for one duel, so this is how it's going. It'll be a three-way duel, each duelist for himself. You can help your opponents out if you want, but there can only be one winner, so sooner or later some backstabbing is going to be required. We'll each have one turn per round, no attacking allowed on the first round. Anyone have any problems with that?" Marik questioned. Bakura sure as hell had no qualms with it, and even goody-goody Yuugi was thrilled by the idea of playing a new version of the game he was already so acquainted with.

Yuugi was allowed to go first. Bakura followed, and then Marik went last. To begin with, Bakura naturally teamed up with Marik, the two of them already familiar with the insides of the other's deck and knowing exactly what strategies and cards would help the other out. That went well for about half of the duel, before Marik violently betrayed Bakura and wiped out nearly half of his lifepoints in a brilliant combo, much to Bakura's chagrin and Yuugi's pleasure. From that point on the bickering had started, and Bakura, not wanting to look like the weaker half of their former team, concentrated all of his attacks on Marik's side of the field as payment. That left him open to Yuugi, who apparently teamed up with Marik (the blonde was just a dirty whore, Bakura decided) to wipe out his remaining lifepoints and kick him out of the game.

Fuming from having been taken care of so easily, Bakura was the one to get up and open the door when Atem knocked. The ex-Pharaoh took one look at the silently hunched backs of Yuugi and Marik and seemed to know exactly what was going on. He joined Bakura on the couch to watch the duel between the remaining two contenders.

Marik was doing well for a while and it looked likely that he would end up the victor of the match. But then Yuugi brought out his trump card and from there it all went downhill. The last round had Marik with 400 lifepoints, and Yuugi with 300. Yuugi attacked with no remorse and won.

"Congratulations, Yuugi!" Atem exclaimed. Yuugi tried spinning around while seated and instead nearly fell over onto the ground. He had been so involved with the match he had not noticed that Atem had showed up. Now he picked himself off the ground and practically flew into Atem's arms. Marik meanwhile also got off the ground and sulked over to Bakura. Both of them made a face when the embrace between the two shrimpy look-alikes began to turn a little _too_ friendly.

"Hey, that's enough of that!" Bakura said quickly. Yuugi was nuzzling up against Atem and it was seriously starting to freak him out now. That was his kind-of-sort-of-in-a-way kid there!

"Yeah, you never let _us_ be affectionate!" Marik added. His arms were crossed and he was quite obviously still sulking.

Yuugi didn't seem to hear them, but he stopped the behavior all the same, and he removed his head from Atem's chest to look him in the eyes. "I'm so happy to see you again! It seems like its been forever!"

"For me too, Yuugi. I'm glad that you're back to your regular self again," Atem said.

"Yeah, all thanks to us," Bakura interrupted. He moved to stand directly in front of the two lovers and forced them to acknowledge him, which they both did.

"Ah, yes, thank you Bakura and Marik. I knew the two of you could do it!" Atem was as cheerful and optimistic as ever. Bakura's glare increased exponentially. It really irked him how much the ex-Pharaoh had changed his disposition once he no longer literally had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Oh yeah, he and Marik were really going to have to plan some evil and fast, because _this_ was unbearable.

"Because you seem to have taken care of Yuugi and raised him without causing any injuries to his person or mind, I will count all accounts equal between us from this point forth," Atem finished.

"Oh goody. So then next time the two of you do something completely stupid, you won't ask us to clean up after your mess?" Marik questioned dryly.

"It's not like we knew what would happen," Yuug muttered quietly. Atem waved the question off.

"That's what I just said, is it not?"

"Well all right then, all accounts are settled, now you can all get out of our house and finally let us be," Bakura said. He honestly saw no reason for them to all continue being together as they were now, and the sooner the two intruders were gone, the better in his mind. Atem nodded and stood gallantly from his coach-throne, Yuugi in tow like a puppy. Bakura wondered absently how he and Marik had raised the kid to be so subservient. It hardly mattered that much, he decided, as long as it got him out that door.

They had almost reached it. Almost. Atem was already out it, but at the last second Yuugi hesitated. He stood with his back to Bakura and Marik for quite some time, then rapidly turned around and hugged them both tightly around the midsection before either knew what was happening. For the second time in just under a month and a half, Yuugi was hugging Bakura, and Bakura was trying as hard he could to restrain himself from violently eviscerating the kid with his bare hands.

"Thank you for taking care of me. It was… kind of fun," Yuugi said quietly, then quickly withdrew his arms as if he'd been touching a poisonous snake. Actually, in this scenario the snake would have been the less deadly.

Marik came to his senses first, having just a bit more experience with human touching than Bakura, and infinitely more wisdom on the workings of the human mind and emotions.

"I think we would both agree with that," he said. When Bakura continued his wide-eyed stare, he heaved and elbowed him sharply in the wide.

"Ow!" Bakura hissed. He noticed Yuugi looking at him and still felt the lingering warmth from the embrace, and quickly scanned through his head for a way to fit together a string of words to make it sound like he cared.

"Marik's right, you weren't all that bad." Yuugi smild as bright as the explosion of an atomic bomb. It literally _hurt_.

"But seriously, if you don't get out of here, I'm going to lose my cool and do something drastic," Bakura stated when the teen made no motion of moving. That worked. He scrambled to Atem's side and then finally, _finally_, after much fanfare and waving that neither villain responded to, they left. Marik shut the door behind him and collapsed bonelessly on the couch. Bakura followed suit.

"Gods I am so tired," the blonde complained.

"Really? We're finally alone and you're complaining that you're tired? I'm horny!" Bakura protested.

"Right now, the bone-aching exhaustion is weighing just a bit more heavily on my mind. How about we sleep for the rest of today, and then we'll fuck for all of tomorrow?" Marik suggested. Bakura considered. It was probably the best offer he was going to get. Not only that, but the sex would be better if the both of them had energy for it.

"I guess I can allow that," he relented. Marik grinned and kissed him fully on the mouth, then sauntered off into the bedroom. Bakura scowled, muttered under his breath about what a tease the other was, then followed.

* * *

><p>End! So like always, I have no idea how Yu-Gi-Oh actually ends. This is just how I've chosen to interpret it for the sake of fiction. I also have not watched Yu-Gi-Oh in quite some time, and so could not tell you what cards the characters use, hence the lackluster descriptions in the dueling areas. I do have the Yami Marik starter deck though (so cool), so that is why I have mentioned the Mystical Beast of Serket and Temple of the Kings cards. Yay! As for three-way duels, they're something my brothers and I do and they work out pretty well. It's fun stuff!<p>

Moar random info! I picture the nicknames little four-year-old Yuugi having for Bakura and Marik (Bakky and Makky) sounding similar-ish to "Mommy" and "Daddy" respectively. Which amuses me. Because Bakky Mommy is fun XP

Okay that's it! I'm really going to try to shorten these chapters so they stop being so huge and taking so long. (I have a poll about this on my profile-if anyone would like to vote and add their input, it would be greatly appreciated!) I'm also going to be trying to update every other week just because I am super busy with school and work and organization things I am a part of and really don't have as much time to write as I'd like. So hopefully that'll work out, and I'll see you all again soon. Remember to review! Thanks!


	19. Fun Fun, Think About Fun

Hello readers! I have for you all today the rather humble continuation of chapter sixteen, a.k.a. the Saw chapter. Some kind of slightish Puppyshipping in this chapter, and perhaps not as much Thief as there should be. Otherwise, that's it for warnings/notifications.

**Disclaimer:** I still do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or the song "Friday". I really don't think that will change any time soon.

* * *

><p>Chapter Nineteen: Fun, Fun, Think About Fun<p>

Marik Ishtar had roughly fifteen minutes left to satisfy the whims of some disembodied voice on a tape recorder before his life went to hell. He'd gone out partying and had woken up with just enough time to despair over the fact that yeah, his life was pretty much over. How much jail time would he get for art fraud? He had no clue. He hadn't exactly researched the potential consequences of his actions when he'd decided to make a living selling fake art on the black market. He hadn't ever expected to be caught. Guess his sister had been right when she'd admonished him for his "foolish lifestyle."

His only solace was that he would not be the only one facing years locked away in prison. He had a companion, and misery loved company, right? Of course Bakura would be going away for a completely different reason than he. Identity theft was a big deal nowadays. Maybe the other would be locked up even longer? Who knew!

What he did know was that he was seriously getting tired of all of this dark and dreary hallway shit. If he was going to be tortured, couldn't it have been in a more lively way? Even Bakura was keeping his yap shut now, and while Marik enjoyed the reprieve from not having to hear the other's senseless comments and mocking intonations, it didn't make things any less dull.

"Oh look. We've come to the third room," Bakura said.

"Thanks for that. Didn't quite notice," Marik replied sarcastically. Had he been able to see his companion in the dark, he would have noticed that Bakura rolled his eyes at him. This small, unobtrusive action would have no doubt sparked another argument between the two males, which would have eaten up more of their already spare time left. Luckily enough, this future was avoided, and as the third door opened, all that was left for the two males to do was walk inside.

Much like the rooms prior, this room was mostly bare but for a wooden chair placed in the center of the room which a very angry male sat atop of. His appearance was every bit as extravagant as the other two, but this particular "friend" looked extremely put off at having to be placed in such a ridiculous situation as this. Cold, angry blue eyes glared at both Marik and Bakura with all the hatred and frost of hell frozen over. Also in direct opposition to the other two, this person was easily identifiable.

"That's Seto Kaiba!" Marik called out. "He's the game dude!" The so proclaimed "game dude" scoffed at the description.

"Yes, I am Seto Kaiba, CEO of KaibaCorp, owner of Kaiba Land, and the inventor of several well-known games. Now that we all know who's who, get me out of this chair," the cool brunette demanded.

"Not so fast," Bakura interrupted. He reached forward and grabbed the tape hanging around Kaiba's neck. "First we hear what we're supposed to do with you."

"Hello again. Are you enjoying my little game? I hope you both are beginning to learn something about yourselves as you pass through each obstacle.

"Before you is a powerful man known as Seto Kaiba. He too has learned the hard way that even the most dominating of men have their uses for the strengths of friendship. What I want you to do now is simple. Talk to Kaiba, get him to open up about his past and see that making new friends isn't such a bad thing. You have ten minutes." And with that, the tape ended.

"Could that have been any more vague?" Marik muttered sarcastically, putting the tape and recorder into his pocket.

"So what, we're supposed to sit here and listen to rich boy's sob story about how his childhood was so terrible, and then we become his friend? Honestly, I'm beginning to think this entire thing is some scam to get free therapeutical help out of us," Bakura said, rolling his eyes. He faced Kaiba determinedly. The taller male stared back frigidly.

"You gonna make this easy on us or not? Because we don't have any more time to be fucking around here," the white haired male said.

"Actually, I'm going to make this as easy as possible. Unlike the both of you, I actually do have things I need to be getting back to. I have an empire to run," Kaiba said. Marik raised an eyebrow. Powerful words for a man strapped down to a wooden chair in the middle of some godforsaken warehouse. He was beginning to appreciate the young CEO's snarkiness.

"When I was a young boy I beat a chess champion named Gozaburo Kaiba in a match. If he lost, he would adopt my brother Mokuba and myself. Gozaburo kept his promise and adopted us and we became Kaibas. He taught us to be as ruthless and powerful as he and as any self-respecting Kaiba should be. When I turned eighteen I bought out fifty-one percent of the shares in KaibaCorp from under his feet and took control of the company. Losing it drove my stepfather to suicide, and with his death, the remaining shares also came under my control. Since then, I've turned his entire empire around. Instead of making machines used in wars, KaibaCorp now makes video games and focuses on different aspects of virtual reality. It's literally become the biggest name there is as far as the top market is concerned. And I didn't need any help from any 'friends' to do any of it," Kaiba finished smartly. Bakura whistled appreciatively.

"Whoo, we're dealing with a big thing here, aren't we? This guy must be worth millions!" Bakura exclaimed, facing Marik. Then, as an idea struck him, he turned a thrifty eye back to the man in the chair. "Say, you wouldn't be interested in helping out a poor guy down on his luck, would you?" Kaiba sneered.

"Please. Do you expect me to fall for such an obvious trap? I know why you're here, Bakura Ryou," he answered. Bakura shrugged nonchalantly.

"Didn't hurt to try," he said.

"Well if you're done trying to scam the person we're supposed to befriend, maybe we can get back to the task at hand here?" Marik questioned sarcastically.

"Sure, if you think you know what to do next, have a go. Rich boy here already told us his story and he's still strapped to the chair." Bakura said. Marik frowned. This did present a problem. Having not had the opportunity to rescue any other "friends", he hadn't had to deal with the restraints before. Were they supposed to take them off, or did they come undone on their own somehow? Had the tape said anything about what they were meant to do next…?

"Seto Kaiba…" Marik said, pausing as his frown deepened. "Would you like to become our friend?"

"I figure I have to if I ever want out of this place. Until I'm out of here, you can call us friends," Kaiba answered, also frowning at the disgusting words coming from his mouth. However, they did the trick. The leather restraints on the CEO's wrists popped open. The man himself gracefully left the chair and toward above them as he stood. Ahead of them all, the door to the room opened and the red numbers of the clock overhead stopped with five minutes left. That meant they had about ten minutes left to get out of this with their secrets intact.

"Let's hurry up and get to the next room," Marik said, gesturing to the open door. Bakura nodded and followed the blonde. Kaiba looked displeased to be in the back, but he followed all the same.

"So rich boy, you have any idea what's next? Or are we finally done with all of this crap?" Bakura questioned as the group made its way down yet another poorly lit and extremely boring hallway.

"What makes you think I would know anything about what's next in this funstacle course from hell?" Kaiba questioned dryly.

"Well I'm assuming you know the man forcing us to go through this. Seems only reasonable then that you would also have some idea of what's going on here."

"Do you really think that I would have agreed to such a set-up of my own free will?" Kaiba asked. Bakura shrugged. Not that anyone could really see the movement in the darkness, but alas…

"How would I know what gets rich boys like you off? Maybe you like the décor of the place. And tying yourself up to chairs could be something you do in your free time," he remarked smarmily. Kaiba scoffed. "At any rate, you _didn't_ say that you didn't know the person doing this to us."

Neither male could see the CEO's face in the darkness, but the void left by his silence indicated that he wasn't too happy with this assumption. Leading Marik, and Bakura no doubt, to believe that Bakura's assumption wasn't too far off base.

"Well?" Marik prompted, unable to take the silence any longer. Anything was better than the steady walk down the hallway.

"Yes, I know the man doing this. He's an annoyingly persistent acquaintance of mine," Kaiba grudgingly gave up.

"Not a friend?" Bakura asked. Marik could hear the grin in his voice.

"_Not_ a friend," Kaiba repeated a bit strongly," though he would consider us to be. I suppose this whole thing is just some plan of his to rehabilitate the two of you, and I happened to fit the parameters of his game design. So here I am, stuck with the two of you. By now I'm sure my company has burned to the ground."

"So you really don't know anything that could help us?" Marik asked.

"If I did, I would have told you by now. Extending this pointless venture any further aids me in no way," Kaiba replied testily, and then was silent thereafter. The silence pervaded to the rest of the group, and Marik again found himself blindly walking down the fourth of one too many dark and bland hallways. And by this point, he had about… eight minutes by his count until his life was permanently ruined. Hurrah.

At least the fourth and what had to be the last room came up quickly, Marik thought. The three of them entered it without any further debate or conversation, and then dame face-to-face with their fourth "friend."

This time around it was a chipper looking blonde, much less exotic in appearance than the previous three, but something interesting remained in his countenance all the same. He didn't look happy to be in the situation he was in, but Marik noticed that he didn't look unhappy either. He just appeared to be watching the three of them with great curiosity, looking them up and down, eyeing them all… at least until he came to Kaiba. When brown (Were they brown? It was too dark to really tell) eyes came to rest of the CEO, that carefree face suddenly became scrunched up and angry. At around the same time, Kaiba made a scoff of what was undeniably disapproval. Before anyone could read anything into these two separate reactions, Bakura had already marched up to the blonde and yanked the tape from around his neck. He nabbed the recorder from Marik's pocket with alarming ease. Cunning thief.

"Hello. We've come to the last part of this little game. I do hope the two of you have learned something thus far. We wouldn't want this whole scenario to be for naught, would we?

"The man you see this time is a good friend of mine, Jounouchi Katsuya. He has kindly agreed to help the two of you truly learn what it means to find yourselves in the full throes of friendship. If the message has yet to be driven into your heads, there is no one I trust more than Jounouchi to do so.

"As with all of the friends you have encountered before you, Jounouchi has a problem that the both of you will be required to solve. You will have ten minutes to help Jounouchi in whatever way he needs it."

For at least half of one of those minutes, no one from the group of three said anything. The blonde remained similarly quiet, likely trying to figure out himself what the recording had meant by this vague and puzzling piece of information.

"Well that was the worst one yet!" Bakura proclaimed suddenly. Marik almost smiled at the outburst. Ahh, Bakura. It seemed like the thief could always be counted on to open his big mouth, no matter what the situation. And he was continuing! "Nothing that idiot said makes any sense at all!" Marik nodded; he did have a point, after all. Jounouchi seemed to feel otherwise.

"'ey! Dat's my friend yer talkin' about dere! 'an 'e ain't no moron!"

"Quiet, mutt. No one would like to hear your senseless yapping," Kaiba remarked coldly from Marik's side. The blonde's eyes swiveled to the taller male, and he recalled both male's reactions to the sight of one another from just a few moments earlier. So it seemed these two knew each other.

"Damn you, Kaiba!" Jounouchi growled. Marik had the distinct feel that there would be more coming, but Kaiba (thankfully) cut him off after that first condemnation.

"So what you're trying to so unintelligibly tell me is that you know what the tape meant? Care to share with the class? Not everyone here is gifted in the ways of understanding what goes on inside that man's head," Kaiba sneered. Jounouchi opened his mouth angrily, but didn't seem to have anything to actually say, and so floundered instead. Kaiba's small smirk grew increasingly wider.

"So you are all bark and no bite, eh mutt?" the rich boy questioned.

"Shaddup Kaiba," Jounouchi growled, doing nothing to stop Kaiba from making the dog jokes in the meantime.

"Yeah okay if you're both done fighting like a married couple here, mind figuring out what we're supposed to be doing? We've got about six minutes left now, and I am not letting myself get put in prison because the two of you have your heads too far up one another's asses to really pay attention to anyone else," Marik interrupted. Fun as this all was, time was still running out. At least now he had everyone in the room's attention on him.

"I already told ya, I ain't got no idea what's goin' on! Dat tape didn't make any sense ta me neither!"

After this sentence Kaiba turned back to Jounouchi, and Marik knew that he had once again lost the two of them. He snarled angrily. At this rate he seriously was going to wind up in some jail cell even worse off than this dingy little warehouse.

"So what do we do now?"

"Hmm?" Marik turned and saw Bakura standing by him. He hadn't been paying much attention to the other male since entering this newest room, even with the chain still connecting them together, but recent circumstances forced him to. One look back at the other two showed that Kaiba and Jounouchi were still arguing with one another. With a sigh and a grimace Bakura put an arm around Marik's shoulders and dragged him a bit away from the arguing couple.

"So what are we doing here? At this rate, both of us are looking at several very boring years spent locked away in a cell if we don't do something about the two lovebirds," Bakura said.

"Well the tape didn't exactly give us a lot of direction," Marik complained.

"Bastard's probably hoping we'll fuck up so he can call the cops on us," Bakura hissed. The arm still around Marik's shoulder tightened, then relaxed slowly. "Okay. We've got about five minutes left. No point in getting angry. What do we know so far?"

"That we're supposed to help Jounouchi. That's all we've got to go off of," Marik replied, but Bakura didn't seem to really be listening to him. He was looking back at the two other two arguing, who at this point would have been at blows had Jounouchi been free from the chair. This annoyed Marik to no end and he cleared his throat noisily. He tried not to be too happy to have Bakura's attention returned back to him.

"So we're supposed to help him. Well what does he need help with? I mean, aside from this hellish test."

"He's still arguing with Kaiba," Marik shrugged. It was obvious enough, but it was the only problem he could see here with this picture. Bakura looked unconvinced for a moment, but the more he looked at the others, the more he looked to come to the same conclusion.

"You better hope this is right, pretty boy. If it's not I'm pretty sure we won't have any time left to try anything else out," the white haired male said. Before Marik could even react to the insult, his companion had left his side and was marching purposefully over to the other two, Marik following from the largest distance the chain would allow. Bakura got right up close to them both. The CEO and the blonde in the chair were too consumed with their argument to pay the intruder any mind. Marik just watched, faintly amused and then greatly outraged and slightly embarrassed as Bakura quickly snuck a hand behind the heads of the two doing all the yelling and then swiftly pushed them together in what resulted in a messy sort of kiss.

At first Marik thought it wouldn't be as bad as he feared. Then as both Kaiba and Jounouchi realized what was going on, Marik saw that yeah, things were going to get pretty bad. He really hoped that Bakura had done the right thing here, because he did not want to have to deal with two very angry supposed "friends" of his looking to kick his ass before he went to jail—where he would undoubtedly get his ass kicked a great many more times.

Before anyone was able to do any ass-kicking or yelling, the flashing red lights of the timer above what had to be the last door stopped for a second before rapidly decreasing to zero. That didn't capture the attention of most of the room's occupants, but the opening of the door afterwards did. Bakura had backed a respectable distance away from Kaiba and Jounouchi in the limited amount of time he'd had available to him, but the two themselves were still in the center of the room. As it was, their intrigue at the opening door was greater than whatever desire they may have held to get away from one another.

The man who entered the room was dressed in a smart black suit. After that initial image, Marik wasn't able to make out much else of his appearance due to the sudden lighting of the room. Apparently there had been lights up there all the while, and now that they were on Marik's eyes felt like frying eggs.

"What the _fuck_? Come on, we beat the damn thing! Can you stop with the torture already!" That was Bakura screaming, no surprise there. Marik peered through his hands and found that if he opened his fingers up little by little to let more light in, he was sort of able to make out what was going on.

"My apologies. I did not mean to cause you any further harm. Rather, I wanted to congratulate the two of you for completing my little game."

Marik recognized the voice of the man instantly as the same one that had been talking to him over the tapes. This was the guy who had drugged him and taken him here. This was the guy who knew all of his secrets and who had tortured him and threatened to send him off to jail.

"I see you failed in rescuing Otogi and Pegasus."

"Yeah, so what? You gonna go spill everything to the cops then?" Bakura spat angrily. "Fuck you. You know what, _fuck you!_ You tell those fucks anything and I'll go and tell them all about how you kidnapped the lot of us and forced us to play your little sick game!"

"Calm down, Ryou Bakura. The police will have no part in this. While you did not rescue Otogi and Pegasus, the two of you did manage to save Kaiba and Jounouchi, which is far better than I had thought you would both do."

"You asshole," Marik said. He could finally see again. The man who'd entered the room and was the catalyst behind all of this trouble was pretty short, and quite a bit less intimidating than Marik had originally assumed, having only seen the suit. Not only that, but his hairstyle looked more like he belonged in some weird rave than overseeing some weird form of torture. Needless to say, Marik was going to give him hell.

"So let me see if I understand this all. You kidnapped us—which is _illegal_, by the way—and forced us to go through this fucked up obstacle course of yours, where if we don't succeed, the guy we're trying to help gets eaten. That's bad enough in its own right, but now I hear that you didn't even expect us to get through this in the first place? You asshole! Asshole! That's all I've got to say about you. You're some sick, twisted individual, making us go through this shit. Who are you to decide we need to learn some lesson? What makes you so much better than us?"

"I don't think you understand what has happened here, Marik Ishtar. I do not think of myself as better than you in some manner, or worthy of deciding the fates of others," the male in the suit responded.

"That's a lie," Kaiba spoke up. Some time during the conversation thus far, he had moved away from Jounouchi and was now looking at the short game master with his signature cold glare. "All I ever see you do is stick your nose where it doesn't belong, Yami. You do the same thing time and time again with every new person you meet, and then, after you and your chums have gone and ruined everything, you expect us to be grateful and praise you for opening our eyes to some new way of life.

"'e doesn't do dat!" Jounouchi protested loudly.

"Quiet, dog. What do you think he was just doing with that little stunt the idiot thief pulled?" Kaiba questioned slowly, like he were talking down to a child.

"Err, dat was…"

"A cheap trick to make get the two of u to stop fighting. Nothing different in the slightest from the normal stunts he pulls," Kaiba finished. Jou looked stumped at that and reverted to frowning.

"Well that at least made sense," Bakura said. "Anyone with eyes could see that the two of you obviously want nothing other than to get into each others pants."

"The same could be said of you and your 'friend' there, thief," Kaiba replied coldly.

"For the _last_ time, I do not want to sleep with him! Nor do I want to sleep with any male! I'm _not_ gay! I like _women_!" Marik screamed. He was quickly losing his cool with all this crap. All he wanted was to get out of here and see if there was still enough night left for him to get drunk. Really drunk.

"Me thinks the lady doth protest too much," Bakura said, nonplussed by the accusation. Marik glared and decided fuck it, he was kicking the man's ass.

"Gentlemen, please. Fighting will get us all nowhere. In fact, it will only keep us here even longer," the dude in the suit, Yami or whatever his name was, interrupted.

"Well then get on with it already! I wanted out of this place a half hour ago," Marik snarled.

"Very well. Kaiba, I must cede a point to you for your argument. You are right in saying that I have a bit of a… preoccupation with trying to better the lives of others, perhaps against their own wishes. But everything I have ever done has and always will be for the betterment of the lives I am involving myself in. Bakura and Marik, can you not both say that you have learned something from this experience?" Yami questioned.

"Nope. All I learned was to be a bit more careful when I go out at night, because apparently there are creeps worse than me out there," Bakura responded with a snarkly grin.

"And do you feel the same, Marik?" Yami asked.

"Hell yeah I do! This was the _biggest_ waste of a perfectly good night imaginable!" Marik raged. Yami closed his eyes and crossed his arms behind him and hummed.

"If that is how you really feel, then I must apologize for any discomfort I have caused the two of you. However, I find it hard to believe that you have not learned anything at all from this. But I will not keep you here any longer. The two of you are free to leave whenever you want. You do not have to worry about the police learning of your secrets. For completing my game, I will no longer pose a threat to either of you, or whatever activities you chose to participate in. I have the key to your handcuffs right here," he said.

"Well thank god for that," Bakura exclaimed. He walked swiftly towards the man in the suit, half dragging Marik along behind him, to the blonde's displeasure. He grabbed the key to the handcuffs unceremoniously from Yami's hand and wasted no time in unlocking the both of them. The chain fell loudly to the ground. Marik sighed in relief and rubbed the skin of his wrist. This was the best thing that had happened to him all day.

"Well if we're allowed to go, then I'm out of here. You sticking around, pretty boy?" Bakura asked.

"Why the hell would I do that?" Marik retorted.

"Dunno. You seemed pretty excited about getting Mr. CEO Seto Kaiba as a friend back there. Figure a hot catch like that would nab your eyes real quick. Maybe you want to stay here and chat with him a bit, how should I know?" Bakura shrugged. Marik's eyes narrowed. He walked right up to Bakura without bothering to see how the brunette had reacted to Bakura's careless words. Hell, if the CEO wanted to beat the shit out of him as well, Marik was game with that.

Bakura was not expecting the blonde to retaliate in any way to his teasing, so he was quite unprepared to brace himself for the fist that hit him directly in the face and sent him staggering backwards. Marik stood above him, feeling quite proud of himself, never mind that his fist now hurt like hell. That had felt good. More than good, it had felt great.

"Come on, Bakura, didn't you want to get out of here?" he questioned sweetly to the white-headed identity thief. Bakura stared at him in mute silence, then raised a hand to the side of his face that bore the brunt of the hit and rubbed it for a few seconds before coming to some decision in his mind and heading after Marik.

"You know you're a douche?" he asked as he fell in step with Marik.

"Nope, haven't heard that one yet," Marik replied cheekily.

"Well you are," Bakura scoffed.

"You can't even say you didn't deserve it. Now you want to go out and get drunk or what?" Marik asked.

"Only if you won't hit on me after, gay boy," Bakura sulked.

"You want me to hit you again?" Marik questioned.

"No."

"Good. Then you shut up and let's go."

They walked through the door Yami had entered through, and after a bit of searching, found a separate door that led to the outside world. It was in fact still night out, though as to the time, Marik still had no clue. He didn't really care. As long as he was outside and there was a bar open, he was going to drink and pretend like this crazy hour of his life had never happened. And he would have a partner with him, which would be interesting, to say the least. Until he got a drink in hand and forgot everything the psycho game master Yami had forced him to do, he would just pretend not to acknowledge that maybe the whack had had something in mind the entire time with the whole "friend" thing. He wasn't going to stop selling fake art anytime soon (shit brought in damn good money), but he'd met someone interesting out of the whole ordeal in the very least.

He left the warehouse with the vague feeling that this was a shitty way to end this most strange hour of his life, with not having any clue what Kaiba and Jounouchi and Yami were doing back there, but in the end, he decided he really didn't care in the least. He'd spent enough of his time on this crap.

"You know I have absolutely no clue where we are," Bakura said suddenly. Marik looked around and realized he also had no idea as to their location. Strangely enough, it didn't bother him as much as he thought it would. At this point, he was far past being annoyed by the small fries.

"Just keep an eye out for a bar and we'll be fine," he said.

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><p>Okay ending! As is common with me, I don't like this chapter that much. I didn't have much time to work on it. My mom has been in the hospital pretty much all week now (she's fine now, but she had some really bad things going on with her kidneys and liver), and so even though it's my spring break and I'm supposed to be relaxing, I've been at home taking care of my three younger brothers. Which is fine, but like I said, I didn't have much time to really work on this chapter. That and I was trying to make it be short and not a monster like the last one. Which reminds me. I have a poll on my profile about chapter lengths that I would love to hear some feedback on! Do you guys like long chapters? Do you wish they were shorter? Go to my profile and vote! I don't know if the results will impact the chapters of ATF, but they will certainly be taken into consideration with stories I work on in the future.<p>

Also I have no clue what I'm doing with Jou's accent. I can't write those. It's probably a smorgasbord of so many different accents I don't even. Just wanted to throw that out there. In other news, like always, please remember to review, and thank you!


	20. You Know What It Is

Hey peeps. Sorry for the huge lack of updates lately. I had finals and whatnot, and life was kind of stressful, so yeah, I really didn't have much time. But here's chapter twenty. It's the sequel to chapter fifteen, since people seemed to want one of those. I don't feel like it's as god as it could have been, but ehh...

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or the song "Friday" by Rebecca Black

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><p>Chapter Twenty: You Know What It Is<p>

Marik Ishtar, aged fifteen, was just a little nervous. Although, had anyone asked him if this was the case, he would have denied such nonsense ferociously.

Isis had offered to come with him today, but he'd told her she was not needed. He didn't want the other kids to see him with his sibling and think he was some kind of baby. He was practically an adult now, and he did not need his big sister accompanying him on his first day of high school.

He'd thought about this day pretty much every moment for the last week or so of summer. He'd wondered what outfit he should choose to wear on his first day, completely forgetting that there was a dress code and he'd be dressed in the same clothes as all the other boys. He'd imagined himself strolling into the big school full of confidence and immediately knowing exactly where he was supposed to go for class. Everyone would see him and know that he was a cool kid, that he had his stuff together and knew what was what. He'd never really thought he'd be as nervous as he was now.

Not that he was nervous! No way, he was Marik Ishtar and he was ready for this! He wasn't a little kid anymore. He would _own_ this school! So no way, he wasn't nervous at all!

Just a little apprehensive.

"You just gonna stand there all day or go in already, jeez," someone muttered sourly behind him. They'd pushed past before he'd been able to see the person's face, and all he caught was a blue uniformed back entering in through the doors of the school when he turned around again. Marik gulped. Whoever the very rude person was was right; he couldn't just stand around outside forever. He'd gotten through his first day of middle school and would get through this as well! With a forced determination, Marik pushed open the doors and went inside.

His first thought was that this place was much bigger than his dinky little high school. _Much bigger_. His second came with a growing feeling of terror. How in the world was he going to find his way through all those hallways? Everything all looked the same and suddenly he was picturing himself wandering down halls upon halls and never ever finding his classroom. He'd be in so much trouble for skipping on the first day, the principle would call home and then Isis would want to talk with him, and, and—!

"Hello there!"

Marik nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden voice by his left shoulder. He spun around and nearly bumped into a very pretty lady wearing a floral-print dress and a big smile.

"Let me guess, this is your first day, right?" she asked. It took Marik a second to find his voice, and when he spoke he sounded raspy and everything came out as a question.

"Uhh, yeah, it is. How did you know?"

"Oh, they all have that look on the first day. You know," she replied, waving her hand to indicate whatever look it was she spoke of. Marik nodded like he understood.

"But so anyways!" she said, clapping her hands, "it looks like you'll need some help finding your way around! I'd help you myself, but I'm afraid I'm on door duty. I've got to keep lookout for other poor lost souls like you. So, who would be fit for the job…?" She raised a hand to her head and narrowed her eyes as she swiveled her head round and round. Marik was a bit unnerved by how enthusiastic she was about all this.

"Aha! I found the perfect target! Oooh, he's been on my list for a while now! He skipped more than half of my classes last year, can you believe it? Just wait here for a moment and I'll grab him and be right back! Don't go anywhere!" the woman cooed right before she disappeared into the throng of incoming students. Marik nodded absently and stared, trying to find whom it was she'd gone after. He was quite sure he'd never met anyone like this woman before. And, if her rambling was to be believed, she was a teacher of some sort? He wondered exactly what class it was she taught.

Only a second seemed to have passed before the chipper young woman was back, dragging a protesting student with her by the back of his collar. She smiled brightly at Marik and made her way over to him, where she deposited her pray at his feet.

"This young man is named Bakura! He'll show you around the school and help you get to your class! All right?" the woman asked. Marik, who had been casually inspecting the other student until the woman had started to speak, did a horrified double-take at the mention of the male's name. Now he was noticing the long white hair he'd thought nothing of before, the full meaning of the words the young woman had spoken before, and shit, the other student was turning around and looking just as displeased and caught off guard as Marik himself and oh yeah, this was Bakura.

"Oh you've got to be fucking kidding me," Bakura swore to himself. The lady scowled at him angrily.

"Bakura! I've told you so many times not to say words like that! Now, I want you to help this young man out! Show him around the school and help him find all of his classes. Don't just ditch him the moment you're out of eyesight, or I'll make your life a living hell, and you know I will!" she raged. Bakura rolled his eyes and scoffed.

"Can't you find someone else to do your dirty work? I got things to do today, and the dweeb will make me look like a total asshat," Bakura complained.

"Don't worry, I'm sure most everyone already thinks that about you," the woman stated dryly. Bakura narrowed his eyes at her.

"Oh look at that! It's another new student! Whelp, looks like I'm needed! Bye Bakura, have fun with your new friend! You know what will happen if you don't do your job!" She was turning abruptly away from them and darting off in a new direction, waving as she left. Marik watched her with something akin to fascination, wondering how she could possible be so happy when she'd just inadvertedly made his life so miserable. Then she had disappeared completely and he realized he was left awkwardly standing with Bakura of all people in the middle of the very busy hall. He fidgeted in his spot.

"Gimme that schedule of yours," Bakura said after several long moments of awkward silence, sighing in such a way that left it impossible not to understand how much of a hassle this was to him. Marik handed it over wordlessly. Bakura unfolded the piece of paper and looked at it hard for a moment, then started down the hallway.

"This way," he called out behind him. Marik darted after him to catch up.

When he and the other teen had reached a section of hall not quite so populated, Marik cleared his throat. Bakura did not look behind him. He decided to try again with some actual conversation.

"So um, that girl from before. Who was that?"

"Anzu Mazaki," Bakura answered shortly.

"Oh," Marik said. He fumbled and tried again. "And she's a teacher or something?"

"She's a grad student. Her mom is close to the superintendent of the school so she's allowed to teach a small dance class," Bakura answered. Marik quirked an eyebrow.

"You took a dance class?" he asked before he could stop himself. Bakura ceased walking so quickly Marik nearly bumped into him. The other male spun around and glared at him.

"How do you know that?" he asked.

"Well she mentioned that you were a student of hers last year, but you skipped more than half of her class. That's why she picked you to give me the tour."

Bakura's brown eyes narrowed again, but he seemed to accept the answer and spun around and continued walking. "My mom made me take it. She threatened to stop giving me money each week if I didn't. Said one day I would thank her for it. Biggest waste of my life if you ask me, but I needed money for shit, so I went along with the dumb idea."

And like that, conversation was over. Bakura led him down a few more hallways he seriously doubted he would remember later on in the day and then finally stopped at a fairly empty looking classroom.

"There ya go, first class of the day. Don't say I never did nothing for no one." And then he turned and waltzed away, hands in his pockets, looking every bit as cool as Marik had wished he would on the first day. Marik walked into the classroom, took a seat, brought out a pencil and notebook from his bag, and gritted his fists tightly. Gods how he _hated_ Bakura!

00000

Despite his marginal success at taming Bakura during his eighth birthday party, the boy had never stopped picking on him. Marik couldn't remember most of the torment, as it had been years earlier and he'd been kind of a baby back then, but he did know that he'd hated the white-haired boy more and more as each day passed. Then, luckily for him, the school year had ended and there had been a glorious Bakura-free summer, and when he'd gone to school again, he and Bakura had been in separate classes.

That trend had continued up until his first year of middle school, where he and Bakura had wound up in the same class. But by that time, while he'd bumped into the other male on occasion in the hallways, he and Bakura hadn't interacted much, and so his tormentor had moved on to more interesting prey.

About halfway into the year, Bakura had suddenly left the class. The two main rumors surrounding his disappearance were that he had either dropped out or somehow moved up a grade. No one ever found out which was the correct version, because no one much cared. The class as a whole was just happy he was gone. Since then, Marik hadn't given the male much thought. He hadn't realized that if it were true that Bakura was still in school, the two of them could have bumped into each other. Really, with all the other kids at this place, what were the odds that the guy Mazaki just happened to pull out of the crowd was the one person Marik loathed more than anyone else?

Because oh yes, he still hated Bakura. Time had not dampened that emotion any. But he'd decided to give the male a chance, told himself that maybe Bakura had changed, maybe he was not the same person he'd been in the past. After all, there was a big difference between eight-year-old Marik and fifteen-year-old Marik. He could only assume the same could be said of Bakura. So he would talk to his old enemy. He would not try to make friends, but he felt like he could at least be civil.

00000

Bakura was waiting outside for him after every class of the day to lead him to the next. Marik was sure that at some point he would just disappear and he'd be on his own to uncover the design under the meanderings of the halls, but each time he thought so he was proven wrong. He would leave the class and Bakura would be leaning against the wall opposite the door, eyes closed and looking for al the world like the coolest little shit on the planet. Then he would kick away from the wall and start silently walking and Marik would follow. There was no further conversation between them, which the blonde was perfectly all right with. After the first had gone so swimmingly well, he wasn't sure what he would say anyways.

The second and third days went much in the same as the first. Each day Bakura was standing outside of the school, waiting for Marik to show up. He would then lead him to his classroom and disappear, off to who knew where. On the forth day, Marik decided enough was enough. This situation was awkward, and he was beginning to feel like someone's pet dog just following around its master with no mind of its own. He spent the first half of the day focusing on where exactly Bakura was taking him and set the path in his mind. During the second half, he felt like he knew enough of the layout of the school that he could successfully get by with some instructions. No guidance necessary.

During the lunch hour, Marik had out of necessity formed a group with several other first-years like him who also had no clue where to sit. Some of them were people he recognized from previous classes. That was nice and all, but this day he had somewhere specific in mind. He was heading to see Bakura.

Bakura sat outside with four other males at the base of a big tree. Marik hadn't caught any of their names and he didn't much care too. They were older students and looked like the type of people he wouldn't want to get caught up with. He paid the four of them no mind as he strode over to them. It was Bakura he was interested in.

The white-haired student was lounging in one of the tree branches. He did not bother to look up when Marik approached, but the other four did.

"An' just woit do ya think yoire doin' 'ere, man?" The one who'd asked the question was the one closest to Marik. He spoke with an accent the blonde was unfamiliar with. He didn't sound threatening, but all the same Marik got the feel that it was a rather rare occurrence for someone on the outside to approach these five.

"I'm here to talk to Bakura," he answered strongly, looking all four of them in the eye. He'd been a little nervous on his first day, but he was not about to let himself be intimidated here and now by some thugs. As long as he showed them he wasn't some pushover, he would be fine.

At the sound of his name, Bakura perked up some, but did not move from his spot on the tree branch so that he could actually see who had spoken. _Asshole_, Marik thought, and tried to contain it. He was supposed to be being civil here. And once he got through this, he would hopefully not have to deal with Bakura ever again.

"I didn't think Bakura knew such a puny underclassman like you," said a second man. He was leaning against the tree trunk and running a hand through his long silver-blue tinted hair. His eyes were closed, but when he opened them Marik discovered they were heterochromatic. One was tinted an off-yellow color, the other a shade darker than his hair. They must have been contacts, he supposed. When he spoke, the other three all turned their heads to look at him, so a good assumption was that this man was also the leader of this motley group.

"He was told to show me around the school. Now, do you mind, or do I need to ask your permission before I can speak with him?" Marik shot out, getting tired of all these frivolities. He just wanted to get this over with so he could go back to living his life and ignoring Bakura's.

His sentence attracted Bakura, but it also attracted the attention of the big blonde sitting next to the boss-man's right. He stood up with a grunt and began to approach Marik. He was trying to be intimidating and Marik had to admit, it was working a little bit. He was beginning to think he should go back and eat his food while he was still able to. He could always nab Bakura before his next class and talk to him then, and really, that should have been his course of action to begin with. He was about to just leave when Bakura jumped out of the tree and strode over the Marik. He placed an arm around the boy's shoulders and began to lead him away. Marik was so startled by the contact that he willingly followed.

"Just keep on walking and don't look back at them. Unless you're trying to get yourself killed, and with that little display, I wouldn't doubt it," Bakura whispered into his ear lowly. There was nothing at all appealing about the action, but Marik found himself shivering at the hot puff of air that hit him. He ignored it and the arm still around him as best he could.

"What was their problem?" Marik asked when Bakura finally deemed them far enough away and let him go. The white-haired teen shrugged, dug in his pocket for something, then fished out a match and a cigarette. He lit it and inhaled deeply, eyes closing in something like bliss as he released the smoke.

"Same as anyone's. They don't like being told what to do by little shits like you. Now you've gone and made yourself some enemies," he said. Marik scoffed. They were just four guys a bit older than he was. He would not allow himself to care about them.

"Some nice friends you have there," he said instead. Bakura cracked an eye open and the almost-smile on his lips turned into a much more commonly seen scowl.

"They're not my friends. They're just a couple of guys I hang around with. I don't have friends," he said. Marik rolled his eyes. Wasn't that the definition of friendship? But he didn't say this out loud. Civility, remember?

"You're going to want to stay away from them for a while. You got everything else wrong, but you were dead right when you said they weren't nice guys. They'll kick your ass for looking at them funny. For the slight you gave Dartz, he'll get his goons to really mess you up some," Bakura said.

"Dartz, huh? That the guy with the crazy eyes?" Marik questioned.

"That's him. The big guy is Rafael, the homo is Amelda, and the Aussie's Valon. You probably don't want to mess with any of them, but especially stay away from Rafael. He's got a lot of patience, but he could easily snap you in half. Better stay away from Valon too. Might have a chance with the homo though," Bakura explained, shrugging. Marik took several deep breaths to calm himself and keep him from showing Bakura firsthand just how capable he was of fighting. Civility. Calm. You're not trying to be friends, but you're not trying to kill him, either.

"Anyways, what's so important that you'd risk life and limb to speak with me?"

Marik opened his eyes and took a small piece of paper out of his bag. "I want you to tell me how to get to my next classes. I don't need you leading me around anymore," he said.

"Good. It was getting to be a huge pain in the ass," Bakura drawled. Marik sneered.

"Well then if you could just tell me exactly how to get to my next class from here, I'll be out of your life for good," he said. Bakura shrugged and walked a bit closer to him. Marik wrinkled his nose up at the cloying smell of smoke that hung about him, but Bakura did not care or move any further away from him. He told Marik exactly where to go, and then wandered away, likely going back to hang out with his loser friends. Marik scoffed, rolled his eyes, and went his own way.

00000

He found the rest of his classes without much trouble. He wound up being late to one of them, but it was okay because he wasn't the only one. On the next day of class he had even less trouble, and on the sixth, he managed to get to each and every class without getting lost or turned around once. The hallways all still looked exactly the same to him, but at least he was beginning to discover where things were.

On his first day back after the weekend, Marik ran into Bakura's "friends" again. He hadn't thought much of the four older boys, other than they looked dumb and he didn't think Bakura should be hanging out with them (but then he got the feel that Bakura had never been a good student, and was more similar to this group of students than any other). So, when the ones Bakura had called Valon and Amelda showed up outside of his last class of the day, Marik wasn't expecting to see them.

"'Ey Marik! Bet yoire a bit surproised ta see us 'ere, ain'tcha?" the one with what was apparently an Australian accent said.

"Not really. It's a big school, but we're bound to run into each other every once in a while. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to get out of here," Marik shrugged, turning to leave. He felt a hand on his shoulder stop him. The hand was connected to the one with the magenta-ish colored hair whom Bakura had described as a homo.

"You don't have to worry about that. You're too busy to be leaving," Amelda said. Marik quirked an eyebrow.

"I didn't know I had something planned for today," he said.

"The boss man jus' woints ta talk ta ya foir a bit," Valon elaborated.

"Well I don't want to talk to him. You want to let me go?" Marik questioned. This was suddenly all starting to get really annoying, and while it was true that he didn't have anything else planned for today, that didn't mean he wanted to spend his time here, being bossed around by two idiots who probably didn't even belong in this school.

"Well that's just too bad, isn't it? Now come on. Dartz is waiting," Amelda said. He started to pull Marik forward, but the blonde dug his feet into the ground and stood firm in front of his class. Amelda gave up and looked annoyed by his persistence, but Valon appeared to be smiling a bit, infuriatingly enough. That was when Marik felt yet another hand come to rest of his shoulder, this one much larger than Amelda's and burning hot. He knew even without looking that the person behind him was Rafael, and that he was in a bit more trouble here than he had initially thought.

He had two choices here. Either he could continue to find some way out of this with all of his limbs intact, or he could just go and see what Dartz wanted. He looked back at the imposing man towering over him and decided to pick the second option. Of course, with Rafael's hand still resting on his shoulder, there wasn't really much of a decision behind the action at all.

As it turned out, Dartz did not want to talk to him as much as he wanted to watch Marik get pummeled by his goons. The man with the heterochromatic eyes stood in front of the big tree out back and watched with an amused, dancing smirk that widened every time Marik got to his feet and was knocked back down. He didn't know why he continued to stand when it would have been so much easier to huddle on the ground and nurse his wounds, but something about that smirk made keep fighting against his beating.

Though his sister had told him on numerous occasions that he was stubborn as a bull, even that attribute was unable to get Marik through his ordeal still on his feet. He tried his best to block as many hits as he could and to stand his ground after each and every one, but the end of the beating found him on the ground trying to protect his most vulnerable areas.

Dartz whistled and the pummeling stopped. Instead of the sound of bunched fists hitting his skin, Marik now heard the steady sound of footsteps approaching.

"I have a question for you, Marik. You seem like a good student. So let me ask, have you learned anything from this?" Dartz asked. Marik curled into himself even tighter.

"Come on now, don't be shy. What have you learned, Marik?" He felt a foot nudge him and knew it belonged to Dartz. He grit his teeth and clenched his fists into the folds of his dirtied uniform but did not answer.

"All right then. You don't have to answer if you don't want to. I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable. Just remember this moment when you think next about opening that insolent little mouth of yours to me," Dartz said. Someone chuckled next to him, and then the next sound Marik heard were four sets of footsteps fading further and further away from him.

When he stood his entire body ached both from his injuries and the strength with which he'd tightened his muscles against the attack. His blue school uniform was dirty and the seams in the left side of it had split. The rest of him was also a mess, from his tangled hair to the dirt smeared into his skin.

When he headed back into the school building, he found that it was already mostly empty. The four assholes who'd beaten him up were nowhere to be seen, and aside from a few students who stared at him as he stormed past, there didn't seem to be any teachers wandering around either. He went into the nearest bathroom he could find and attempted to clean himself off as well as he could before walking home. His parents would be out, so he didn't have to worry about them catching sight of him. Isis would hopefully be out with her friends, so that only left Rishid. He didn't feel like explaining to anyone what had happened until he was able to first come up with a reasonable excuse.

Right now, he didn't care so much about thinking of one. That could be dealt with later. First, he needed to figure out how he was going to deal with this situation, because there was no way someone took on Marik Ishtar without facing the consequences afterwards.

00000

This time during the lunch hour, Marik had a bit more trouble attempting to locate Bakura. He wasn't too keen on going near the big tree outdoors where the very people who had just attacked him were, but that was where Bakura apparently liked to stay. So Marik skirted around near the edges of the buildings and peered out at the tree and found that it looked like Bakura was absent from it this time around. Which was nice, because it prevented an uncomfortable trip to it, but he still had no idea where the asshole _was_.

He found him wandering the hallways closest to the cafeteria, looking like he didn't have a care in the damn world. When he spotted Marik, his expression took on a faintly annoyed look that, curiously enough as the blonde got closer, faded into one of schooled emptiness.

"The fuck happened to you?" Bakura asked. There was just a hint of the same cruel teasing lilt he'd used when he'd been younger, and just the sound of it was enough to set Marik off, even though he knew he didn't have anything against the other teen just yet.

"Your friends beat the crap out of me yesterday, that's what happened," Marik snarled, finally closing those last few steps that prevented him from getting up close and personal.

"I already told you, they aren't my friends. _And_ I told you to stay away from them. Your own damn fault for what happened," Bakura shrugged. Marik saw red. His hands shot out and grabbed Bakura by the collar of his white undershirt and yanked him down close to his face.

"Somehow I'm having a hard time believing that," he said heavily. "You don't like me, and I sure as hell don't like you. I'm sure both of us were happy when the school system worked in our favor and got us away from each other. I never expected to see you again, but I did, and I told myself I would try to at least be civil if nothing else. I think I've done a good job of it so far. But you really don't care about any of that, do you?"

"Get out of my face," Bakura growled. Marik yanked him in closer.

"We don't have to like each other. I don't _want_ to like you. But I do want to be able to attend class here without having to check every time I go out into the hallways after class to make sure no one's following me. So I'm telling you now to stop this crap," he said.

"You think I told them to do that? They listen to Dartz, not me! I just hang around them on occasion!" Bakura protested.

"I don't care who's top dog. Dartz could be the leader of the whole student body and I'd _still_ be sure you had something to do with this. Stop it. I don't have time to deal with this crap. Unlike you, I actually care about what I'm doing here. I'm not going to waste my time dealing with you or them," Marik finished, and with a shove let Bakura go. The other male stumbled back a few feet but remained standing. He wiped the front of his jacket off and glared at Marik as he walked away.

00000

For a few days, it was good. Mark had no further mishaps with Dartz and his buddies, though whether that was because he had yelled at Bakura or because he just hadn't run into any of them, he wasn't quite sure. He liked to believe it was the former. On top of that, he was finding his way around the school without any trouble. Once he got the hang of it, it wasn't all that difficult to navigate. He was even able to show other students where to go on occasion, which made his pride swell immensely.

And then he ran into Bakura. Past experiences had taught him that encounters with the other male all spelled out trouble. Bad news hung off Bakura like a second skin. It was no small wonder that he had managed to stay in school for as long as he had, despite being smart enough to skip a grade. He just didn't care about anything, and that, on top of the fact that he hung out with some serious jerks, really made Marik want nothing to do with him.

This time around, their situations were reversed. He caught Bakura walking on the other side of the hallway from him as classes changed, hands in his pockets and head down. The male's posture was screaming that he didn't give a crap, and Marik didn't give a crap either, but suddenly he'd noticed the yellowish hue of a healing bruise around the paler teen's eye, and before he knew it his feet were going in the opposite direction of his next class and headed toward the boy he hated more than anything.

"What happened?" The question was already out of his mouth before he'd actually reached Bakura. Bakura raised his head and looked around. When he caught sight of Marik, the lines of the scowl he was already wearing deepened even further.

"Get out of here," he growled, and shoved his way past Marik. Marik's open mouth closed and he quickly caught up to the retreating teen. Bakura glared at him and then proceeded to continue to walk ahead with his eyes set on the hall in front of him.

"So? Spill. What happened?" Marik questioned again. From the profile, he got a good glimpse of Bakura's healing black eye. There was also a fading mark on his cheekbone, like he'd scraped the skin there against something. As far as he could see from his rather disadvantageous position, there were no other markings. But then again, the school uniform covered a lot of skin that could have easily been bearing further bruising.

"Nothing 'happened', got it? So get out of my face and leave me alone," Bakura reiterated and picked up his step. Again, Marik followed, this time with a widening sort of half-grin on his face.

"Someone finally got tired of your shit, didn't they? Socked you good, too," he responded with a light laugh. Bakura stopped. He turned slowly and when he looked at Marik, his expression was impenetrable.

"What the hell do you want?" he asked carefully.

"I thought that was obvious enough," Marik responded dryly. "I asked what happened."

"Yeah fine, someone hit me. Now what do you want? As you already made clear enough the other day, the two of us hate each other. So why are you here, and what do I have to do to make you leave?"

"Yeah, we hate each other," Marik responded, growing angry himself now. This was his line—he was the one constantly being bothered by Bakura. "And don't worry, I was just leaving now." He turned and walked away and wasn't sure whether he was more pissed at Bakura for being such an ass, of himself for actually giving something close to a damn for a second there.

"Aw, Marik! Yoire already leavin', are ya? We was jus' coiming over ta see the two of ya!"

Much as he didn't want to and his instinct told him not to, Marik stopped walking. There was only one person he knew who spoke like that. It wasn't just Valon who had approached him and Bakura, but the other two of Dartz's henchmen. The man himself wasn't there, but that didn't make Marik relax any. After all, it wasn't Dartz who had beaten him up. He'd just ordered it to be done.

"Well this is just my fucking luck, isn't it? Someone must be real pissed with me today," Bakura grumbled, eyes flashing as he glared at all of them.

"Oooh, did you get into a fight with your boyfriend?" Amelda asked with just a bit too much enthusiasm. Bakura's eyes hardened to daggers and even Rafael seemed to grimace a bit at the third member of their group.

"If the three of you are here for a specific reason, then you'd better say it now, or I'll be forced to conclude that only meaningless dribble will continue to spew from your mouths, and I don't have the time to deal with that crap," Bakura bit out. He was doing a good job of keeping his obvious anger under control for the time being, but something about the tense nature of his stature said that wouldn't be the case for long.

"Actuoily, we 'ave a bit of a question for ya, Bakouira. Dartz woints ta know if yoid loike ta be forgiven for woit yoive done," Valon said. This instantly caught Marik's attention.

"What did he do?" Marik asked, coming closer to the other males. He still didn't think this was a good idea in any manner, but now his interest was piqued. As far as he knew, Bakura was on good terms with Dartz and his goons. Apparently this was not the case.

"He don't know? Well ain't that interestin', boiys," Valon chuckled, impervious to the deadly glare Bakura was sending his way. Something had happened between Bakura and Dartz and his crew, something that Bakura didn't want him to know about.

"What do I not know?" Marik questioned.

"Nothing!" Bakura snapped, spinning to face him. "They're talking nonsense, like they always do. So just get lost already! Isn't that what you were planning on doing?"

"Now that ain't very noice," Valon interrupted before Marik was able to say anything. Bakura continued to send his death glares at the teen, who continued to ignore them in favor of grinning his wide, knowing grin.

"I think we should tell Marik what he wants to know," Amelda said. "Rafael?" The big blonde nodded. Marik turned to face the three fully now and ignored Bakura's own sputtering in the background.

"What did Bakura do?"

"He angered Master Dartz," Rafael answered. His voice was deep and gravelly, and surprised Marik, who'd never heard the man speak before this point. He'd expected the man to sound dumb, the type of guy who was only useful in being the muscle. But there was a surprising amount of intelligence and power in his voice, and Marik found himself listening intently.

"He stood up against Master Dartz and told him to leave you alone. He apparently did not appreciate our treatment of you, and said as much. Master Dartz rightfully took this as an affront, and told us to teach Bakura a lesson," Rafael finished. Which explained the healing bruised eye, but not why Bakura would do such a thing in the first place.

"And now we're here with our offer," Amelda finished. Now four pairs of eyes found focus on Bakura once more, three of which were interested to hear what he would say in response to their question.

Bakura burned with barely controlled anger. He stood ramrod straight, his hands fisted together at his side. Marik was sure that any second he was going to run and attack all four of them. Instead, he closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and opened them. He bore into Rafael's eyes with his own, and when he spoke, his anger was barely restrained.

"You can tell Dartz to fuck off." And then he abruptly turned and left.

Valon began laughing, but Marik hardly heard it as after a moment's hesitation he headed after Bakura. The teen had out a surprising amount of distance between them despite only having a few seconds worth of a head start. Marik caught up easily enough, and when he raised an arm to touch Bakura's own, he was roughly grabbed and shoved against the nearest wall, Bakura pressed close against him.

"What the fuck could you possibly want now?" the other teen hissed. For the second time in only several minutes, this was not the smartest decision Marik could have made. He'd seen how angry Bakura was at the three and pushing him any further could only land Marik in even more trouble. But he wasn't about to just ignore the information he'd learned.

"I want to know why you told them to leave me alone," Marik said. Something in Bakura's face shifted, changed into something that wasn't anger, but the change was too fast and too unexpected for Marik to truly catch it. He did however, feel the body that was pressed against his own flinch, just a bit.

"I didn't," Bakura spat out. "They're full of shit. I hate you, remember? Why would I care what they do to you?"

"Why would you?" Marik parroted, his own voice lowering in imitation of Bakura's own. "You keep saying you hate me, and for the most part it seems like you do, but then you'll do these things that complicate that. Like kiss me at a birthday party, or say, try to get some thugs to stop beating me up."

"Don't bring that up," Bakura said, voice and eyes now taking on a steely edge and a dangerous tone. He was giving a warning for him to stop, Marik realized, but he wasn't going to heed it. He pressed on.

"Why not?" Marik asked, innocently enough. "You hate me, so I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation behind both of those instances, right?"

"Yeah, I fucking hate you," Bakura snarled, pushing Marik up further against the wall. His chocolate eyes sparkled fiercely. "I hated you the moment I saw you. You were so fucking pathetic and easy to tease, but everyone liked you anyways, didn't they? And I hated that everyone liked you, and I hated the way you looked, and I hated hearing your stupid voice every single day. And then I hated that my mom thought it would be a good idea to put me in a higher grade, and I hated that I didn't see you anymore, and when I finally got over hating that, fucking Anzu Mazaki threw us together again and I found myself hating you all over. I hate that you can't take care of yourself and you're still so fucking pathetic and I hate that you won't just keep the hell away from me and I _hate_ you!"

The situation was too similar to the one from Marik's earlier past, a more mature and fully developed version of the hate Bakura had described for him right after that kiss. Bakura was still holding him in place, still looking at him with a look that was beginning to seem desperate, still waiting for him to say something. And Marik couldn't say anything at all. He was altogether too aware of Bakura's body pressed so hard against his own, pinning him in place, and everything that Bakura had said was starting to make sense in a way he didn't want it to.

"You actually li—"

"_Don't_." Bakura was still looking at him, still keeping him in place, and Marik was starting to feel extremely uncomfortable with all this now. This wasn't what he wanted. He'd wanted to tease and cause some trouble, but he didn't want this.

"Don't finish that sentence," Bakura said. His voice was ragged and strained. "Just fucking don't. I hate you, and that's that. So do me a favor and stay the fuck away."

He sort of drooped when he let Marik go. He was no longer making eye contact, and all the fury and anger Bakura had been carrying around seemed drained out of him by now. Of course Marik had already figured things out pretty clearly by this point, but if the somewhat confession hadn't clued him in, the abrupt and lethargic attitude change would have. Bakura walked away from him without so much as a a glance back, and left Marik standing there and more confused than he'd ever been in his life.

00000

He didn't talk much when he went home for the day, a fact that his sister picked up on but that he had no excuse for. This wasn't exactly something he could talk to her about. Gone were the days where Isis could tell him the reason Bakura was so mean to him was because he actually liked him, and wanted to be friends. Of course, she'd apparently been right in that regard, but things were a lot more complicated than that.

He hated Bakura. He was sure that he hated Bakura. He'd hated Bakura from the first time the cruel boy had made fun of him in class, and he'd only gone on to continue hating him from that point forth. But now Marik was all confused, because Bakura was supposed to hate him as well, and apparently he didn't. Now he was questioning his own hatred, because what if it didn't run as deep as he thought it did?

He felt something. He was sure of that. When he'd made the connection between what Bakura wasn't saying and his actions, Marik's heart had lurched in a manner that was largely unpleasant. The idea of Bakura feeling anything besides hatred for him was a vastly foreign one that he rejected with his everything. The fact that it was true made it all the more difficult to deal with. But he did feel something. It was the something that made him act civil to Bakura, and now it was a something that told him the only way that anything was going to be figured out would be if he confronted the other teen and made him say out loud what Marik had already figured out. The problem with that was he didn't _want_ to know. He didn't want to know at all. He'd been perfectly fine with hatred, thank you very much.

So he made sure to avoid Bakura. He did this for a week and a half. He wasn't able to avoid Dartz and his goons, who still seemed intent on causing him to suffer for whatever imagined slight he'd done to them, but compared to the confusion of his head, the pain of his body was the much more pleasant choice.

He ran into Bakura a few times throughout the week, but they were quick instances where he was able to get away fast enough for it to not matter at all. He didn't really run into him until the very end of the week, when he noticed Bakura leaning against the big tree outside.

Heading out toward Bakura was the very last thing Marik wanted to do. He'd been about to leave the school when a flash of the other boy caught his eye. It was something close to habit now with which Marik constantly looked out toward the big tree. He liked to know where Dartz and the others were. If he knew where they were, he knew where he should stay away from. And when they were sitting around outside like they did, they were much less inclined to come after him. Although they were usually gone by this time of the day, Marik looked regardless, and this time he saw Bakura.

He hadn't seen Bakura around Dartz since Valon and the others had tried to get him to join their group again. Seeing Bakura out by the tree was such a surprise that he found himself headed towards it without a second thought on the matter.

Bakura's eyes were closed. He looked like he was asleep, but he was breathing too heavily to truly be sleeping. The way he leaned against the trunk of the tree spoke not of rest, but of a deep exhaustion. And then there were the injuries. Injuries that were so familiar to the ones Marik's own skin bore, he knew without a doubt that they'd come from Dartz. If he'd gotten out of class just a few moments earlier, he didn't doubt that he would have found Bakura in the midst of a fight.

Now he had a decision to make. Bakura hadn't noticed his approach, or at least he thought he hadn't. He could easily leave and just act like he'd never noticed his classmate. Or he could keep approaching, like he was doing now, even though he really did not want to because without a doubt it would make everything complicated. But Bakura was in this position because of him, and that something he felt was telling him that he should help out.

When he got close enough, Bakura opened his eyes. He didn't react to Marik's presence right away, leading the blonde to believe that he really was in a bad condition. When he did notice Marik's approach, his grimaced and began to force himself off the ground. Marik went to him.

"Hey, stop that," he said, surprised by how calm his voice was in all this. "You'll hurt yourself even more if you try to move around and push yourself. It's best to just wait a bit."

"Get out of here," Bakura growled. His didn't speak with an ounce of his normal anger. The effort required to muster up his usual venom was probably too much for him right now.

"Will you just stop that already? It's getting old," Marik said. He bent down close to Bakura and looked for the best way to go about all this. It would be best to get him to the bathroom where he could at least wipe the dirt off and some stray smears of blood. When he tried to reach out for Bakura, the other boy pushed him away.

"I don't need your help!" he yelled.

"I didn't need your help either," Marik retorted, quickly finding the same anger he always felt when dealing with Bakura rise up in him. He tried to will it away as best he could. "I didn't ask you to tell Dartz to stop messing with me. You did that all on your own. Now I'm going to help you out." Bakura grumbled and groaned, but he didn't go out of his way to get away from Marik and more. He didn't make things easy either, but Marik was able to get an arm around the other's shoulders and help walk him back into the building and to the bathroom.

"I can do that myself," Bakura snarled, snatching the wet paper towel away from Marik. Marik chuckled a bit, and just watched as Bakura tried to clean himself off. It was silent then, and the silence reminded him just how uncomfortable and awkward this situation was. Marik spat out the first thing that came to his head.

"So for how long have you liked me?"

Bakura nearly dropped the wet towel as his face reached an even more impressive shade of pale. Marik realized this was probably not the best question to have asked, but it had been the first thing to enter his head, given the person he was with. Bakura, to his credit, gathered himself together and began to scrub at his skin with more fury than before.

"Since never," he spat out. "I hate you." So, if Marik was starting to understand him correctly, since the beginning. He gulped, realized he was okay with that, kind of, then moved on.

"You know, Isis told me once that if you were being mean to me, it meant that you probably liked me," he mused.

"Well your sister's an idiot. I don't like you."

"You give new meaning to the word stubborn," Marik murmured. He said it quietly, but Bakura caught the words regardless, and his scowl deepened. He wiped his cheek off one last time and threw the towel away.

"There you go, all cleaned up. Now we can get on with our lives and hopefully keep them separate," Bakura said.

"I've been thinking," Marik began.

"Oh really?" Marik ignored this, if only for the reason that when Bakura said it, his frown turned into something of a smirk, and it was a bit nice to see.

"Dartz is after both of us, right? Well we don't seem to be getting anywhere like this. Maybe if we work together, we can get him to leave us alone. Then we can go back to hating each other," he explained.

"And just why should I work with you?" Bakura demanded. Marik smirked a bit himself. He was still super uneasy about all of this, but being here, in a situation where he wasn't arguing with Bakura but actually bantering with him, he was actually a lot more at ease than he'd ever thought he could be.

"Because you hate me so much," he responded, smirking even wider when Bakura started and his eyes narrowed. "And so that we don't have to keep getting our asses handed to us and wind up in situations like this. Unless you secretly want me to help you out again?"

"I don't!" Bakura shouted hotly, realizing his mistake only when Marik began to chuckle. To Marik's enjoyment, his cheeks started to burn as well. Teasing Bakura was a lot more fun than being teased by him.

"Well then, I propose a partnership!" Marik announced. He offered his hand out to Bakura, who looked at it suspiciously. He waited, and when Bakura still didn't take it, he began to really start feeling foolish about all this. Maybe he'd been right to feel awkward about this all after all. But then Bakura slowly took his hand, and they shook.

"Looks like we'll have to learn to get along a bit better," Marik mused.

"Nonsense," Bakura scoffed. "I'm still going to hate you, nothing will change that. And wipe that stupid look off your face right now. When I say hate, I mean hate, nothing else. So don't get anything weird stuck in your head, all right?"

"Suure," Marik sang. He knew otherwise, of course. But at the moment anyways, he was okay with that.

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><p>Okay! So, chapter. Like I said, I don't feel like this one was very good, but then I didn't have an easy time writing it. Next one should be better! I promise. Also, I don't know much about the Japanese school system, but I was trying to write about that. Also. Australian accents. I believe I've already said I'm bad at accents? Yeah. That probably shows.<p>

Anyways, be sure to leave a review! I also do not have internet at my house at the moment, but I will respond when I have the chance! Thanks!


	21. I Got This, You Got This

Ahh! Sorry it's been so long! I've been out of the country in Italy! I'm doing a study abroad program in Florence, but before that I was in Sicily visiting relatives I didn't even know I had. So while I have wi-fi at the internet I'll be staying at here, I didn't have it for the longest time where I was, hence the no updates. But I really want to make up for that, so I'm going to try getting back onto a once a week schedule!

This particular idea was thought of during the winter... When it was still cold... And there really wasn't snow, because it was a pretty mild winter, but I tried ice-skating at my school for the first time and kind of sucked at it, but I thought it would be cute to make Bakura and Marik do it! And then Atem came in, and it became the way it is now. But it's still fun, I think. But so at any rate, here's the chapter! (Also, note, we'll now be using Italian times for when Friday technically starts. So that means since I'm ahead of everyone, you'll get this chapter still on Thursday in the states, depending on when I put it up here. Yay time differences!)

**Disclaimer: **I am now a world-weary traveler, but I still don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. Or the song "Friday" by Rebecca Black. Yeap.

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><p>"I don't understand how you're so fucking good at this."<p>

It was freezing. Even with the huge, downy winter coat (and the wool gloves, and the scarf, and the queer little hat with the damn wool ball on the top that he'd been forced to wear), it was still freezing. But that wasn't all that bad, when compared to the other thing about this day that Marik was finding it in himself to loathe to entirely new levels. He did not like failing. He did not like failing, and he did not like failing in front of someone, especially someone who was not failing, but instead succeeding marvelously, and not being too humble about it, either.

"Told you already. Ryou's a pro-skater, so I happened to inherit his abilities when I inherited his body," Bakura replied smugly as he skated on by. Backwards. Without crashing into a single person, or suddenly tripping on a piece of rough ice and falling on his ass or face. And then to top it all off, he twisted and jumped into the air, landing it with a fucking pirouette. Now Marik knew next to nothing about ice-skating, but he was pretty sure if that move had been in a competition, all the judges would have given him a ten. Every single fucking one of them.

"You mean stole his body," Marik mumbled under his breath, as he once again tried his luck at letting go of the railing that surrounding the frozen pond and moving forward on his own. Even an inch would be good. He managed to get his inch, but after that promptly lost balance and only kept himself upright by choking the rail with a deathgrip. Bakura skated on past, laughing.

"You know, that's cheating anyways! I'd like to see you try without his help!" Marik shouted. Bakura quickly turned, skated his way back to the blonde, and came to a sliding stop, sending sprays of ice and snow all over Marik.

"I'd still be better than you," Bakura responded with a cheeky grin. He leaned in close, kissed Marik on his cold cheek, and then skated away to once more put everyone else to shame.

"Fuck you, too!" Marik shouted, managing to once more get to his feet. Not that the position would last long. He'd never in his life spent so much time on the ground, and that included his time spent with Bakura.

"Stupid asshole, how can he expect me to ice skate? There's no ice in Egypt! There's sand, lots and lots of sand. Stupid idea anyways!" he continued to mumble to himself.

"I'm Egyptian too, you know," Bakura teased as he once again whizzed past Marik, leaving him far behind to round another lap of the frozen lake. Perfectly.

"Not anymore, you limey bastard!" Marik swore at him, and then promptly lost his balance and fell once more to the ice. He didn't even know what number this was. He'd lost count a while ago.

This ice skating thing was possibly the worst idea of fun ever invented, but he couldn't get too angry. Bakura was having a blast, if his cheery demeanor was anything to go by, and the idea of that was just as foreign to Marik. Sure, Bakura was often amused by certain things, like the pain and misfortune of others, but he hardly ever expressed the amount of enjoyment Marik was seeing here. He didn't doubt that Bakura enjoyed their time spent together, but how much he enjoyed it didn't often show. If the spirit was happy now, then Marik decided he could take a few falls. Or a lot.

Bakura rounded the lake again and came to a graceful stop beside him. He bent down and offered Marik a hand, which the blonde not so politely declined.

"Come on, Marik, its really not that hard. All you've got to do is try to balance," Bakura grinned.

"Oh, thank you, Bakura! Why, it turns out this entire time I've just been _trying_ to fall! Well, now that that's straightened up, I bet I just _soar_ across the ice!" Marik exclaimed sarcastically. Now that he was once again on his feet, he gripped the railing tightly and began to pull himself forward, moving his feet an inch back and forth all the while. The movement wasn't really doing anything, but he figured he had to start somewhere. And hopefully that somewhere would move him far enough that he could get away from Bakura and his infuriatingly perfect ice-skating form.

Before he managed to do that, he felt an arm encircle his waist, and then there was a hand on his, pulling him away from the railing before he had a chance to really latch onto it. And then he _was_ soaring, flying past other skaters without falling on his ass, or embarrassing himself in any manner.

"Ba-Bakura! What are you doing? Let me go!" Marik protested loudly. He could feel his face starting to heat up, despite how cold it was, and he hoped to the gods he didn't look as corny as he knew he did, being held like this. Bakura's warm breath came out against his cheek as the man himself leaned in closer to his body.

"See? This is much better now, isn't it? It's all about balance. Stop worrying that you're going to fall all the time and just concentrate on moving," the other man said. Marik didn't respond, because this _was_ better than what he had been doing, but he still didn't want to be taught like this. He'd been fine with learning how to do it by himself, thank you very much!

"Close your eyes," Bakura murmured against his skin, sounding much too soft for it to truly be him talking.

"No! I'll fall for sure," Marik argued. And going at this speed, falling would be sure to hurt a lot more than what he'd experienced so far.

"Don't be a brat, Marik. Just close your eyes and trust me," Bakura heaved. Marik screwed his face up and prepared to protest this idea more, but the thing was, stupid as he knew he was being, he _did_ trust Bakura. He had no idea how it was possible for a villain to learn how to feel that for a second villain, but he did. So he closed his eyes and hoped to the gods that Bakura wouldn't suddenly lose that miraculous skating ability he'd gotten from Ryou.

And then he really did feel like he was soaring. It was the same as he felt whenever he road his motorcycle. The same feeling of freedom, and he could feel the icy wind blowing the hair that was not held down under his hat. The idea that he could feel this same way in such a completely different environment startled him so much that he accidentally let out a small laugh. He knew that Bakura had heard it when he felt the man's lips curl into something like a smile against his cheek.

"Told you," Bakura quipped cockily. Marik didn't bother to search his brain for a smart response. He was going to enjoy this sensation, and not let Bakura's smartass-ness ruin it. Sure, it was a little bit different from riding his bike. He was not going as quickly, and he was still freezing, but feeling this way after having had such a terrible time earlier made it very nice indeed.

"Okay, now open your eyes again," Bakura commanded.

"Why?"

"Because now you're going to learn to do it yourself."

Marik's eyes opened very quickly indeed. When he noticed how fast he was going, he felt a short burst of fear, because it would be just like Bakura to let him go and see what happened. He grabbed onto the man tightly. If he was going anywhere, Bakura was coming too.

"I can't do this myself!" Marik protested.

"You'll have to learn to. It's embarrassing for you to be falling on your ass every five seconds. We'll take it slowly, okay?" Bakura questioned. He sounded sweet enough, but he was grinning his one of a kind smirk, and Marik knew that he was being mocked.

"Let go of me, and just give me one of your hands. We'll just go nice and easy." They had slowed down considerably from the speed they'd been traveling when Marik first opened his eyes, and now Bakura was holding onto his hand, slowly skating (backwards) around the ice, pulling Marik along with him. This… this wasn't so bad. This wasn't as nice as it had been before, but this wasn't bad, either. He could get the hang of this.

"Just watch the way I move my feet, and try to do the same thing. There you go, that's it. Now I'm going to try letting you go, okay? Don't freak out and make yourself fall again. Just keep moving the way you've been doing, and you'll be fine."

And Marik was pretty fine. He fell twice, but that wasn't as bad as before. And, with Bakura's assistance, he managed to make his way around the entire rink without falling. Which was really, really good, given his track record.

What was more surprising than anything else was how good of a teacher Bakura was proving to be. Marik had never seen him like this before. He was still Bakura, but he was a patient Bakura who was actually trying to help him learn instead of just laughing his ass off every time he fell. Of course, he did laugh when Marik found himself once again meeting the ground he couldn't seem to keep away from, but a few minutes after, he was once again helping Marik up and showing him how to keep his balance.

He probably wouldn't ever be as good as Bakura (or rather, Ryou), at ice skating, but by the time Marik was too cold to keep skating any more, he managed to circle the ring quite a few times by himself without falling. He still wasn't quite sure about ice skating being an activity worth its salt, but at least he was able to somewhat enjoy himself now.

And then that came to an end as both he and Bakura came to a stop as a call rang out over the ice, managing to sound commanding and overbearing at the same time.

"Tomb Robber!"

It could only be the voice of the one asshole both he and Bakura knew very well. And as the two villains looked across the frozen lake to the source of the call, there he was, skating just as perfectly as Bakura towards them. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea. All around him, other skaters came to a standstill and moved out of their way to let the teen with the tri-colored hair come forth. And he did, holding his head up high in the air like the royalty he still liked to believe he was.

"Gods, you just had to show up and ruin a perfectly nice night out, didn't you?" Bakura growled. Suddenly he was sounding less and less like that soft, almost cheerful person that had spoken to Marik so quietly before, and more like the sadistic asshole he was at all other times.

"The way you say it makes it seem like 'ruining your night' had been my intention all along, Tomb Robber," Atem responded coolly.

"Somehow that wouldn't surprise me," Marik replied dryly. He was really starting to freeze his ass off here, and he hoped that whatever this penis-bragging contest was all about would soon be over. Of course he had to keep up his cool until then, but there was really only so much more annoyance he could take today.

"Well since I'm here, and you're here," Atem said, completely ignoring Marik's comment altogether, "why don't you and I have a bit of a contest?"

"Nope," Bakura responded flatly. "We've been here for at least two hours already, and if we don't get going soon, he's bound to start bitching." For once, Marik didn't even complain about the finger that was pointed in his direction at the end of this comment. It was true, and if it got him out of this weather and into a nice hot bath, then he'd allow the blow to his pride.

"Ah, I understand. That last loss was quite the humiliating one, wasn't it?" Atem quipped. Bakura stopped in his tracks. Marik slapped his hand up against his forehead. He should have known better.

Atem, the asshole, had let them get away. Almost. They had very nearly made it to the end of the rink before he had uttered that last comment that had made Bakura stop, and Marik know that he was going to be waiting for that hot bath for a long time to come. Bakura hated losing even more than Marik himself, and if it was possible that he had done so in a match against Atem, then all Atem needed to do was bring that up to get Bakura to do exactly what he wanted him to do. And as Bakura turned around to face the ex-Pharaoh again, Marik knew that was just what was happening here.

"That was Ryou, not me, and you know it, you bastard," Bakura growled.

"It may have been your hikari, but he wore the Ring at that time, didn't he? His loss counts as your own, Tomb Robber," Atem shrugged.

"It does not and you know it!" Bakura shouted, really getting worked up now.

"We'll let the match decide that. Unless you still want to leave…?"

"Fuck that! I accept your challenge, and I'll beat you down to the ground!"

And that was how Marik was now sitting with all the other could-be ice-skaters at the side of the pond, watching Bakura and Atem in the center. Both males were staring at each other intently, Bakura with a ferocious grin and Atem with a tight little smile. From what Marik could gather, Yuugi was apparently every bit the pro-skater Ryou was, and when the two had faced off in the past, it was Yuugi who had emerged as the victor of that battle. No doubt the two whiny hikaris didn't care about it at all, but the same could not be said of their yamis. And that all meant that Marik was truly the one to suffer here. He wanted Bakura to win, of course, but… that bath… so tempting…

The match began without his notice. He'd been a bit too busy daydreaming about how warm it would be back in his apartment to notice that the two on the ice had began skating until he heard the crowd cheering all around him. Atem had gone first, and he was landing some seriously good moves. At least from the cheering and the number of spins going on, Marik assumed they were good moves. He really had no idea how ice-skating was graded, but it all looked pretty cool.

Atem earned an 8, a 9, and a second 8 from the three judges that had been pulled out of who knew where. He skated gracefully to the side of the rink, shot Bakura an evil glance as he passed, and then waited for the British teen to show his own stuff. Bakura skated to the middle of the lake and stood completely still. And then continued to stand, and continued to stand some more. Just as Marik was beginning to wonder if something had happened, the male burst out into a flurry of movements.

Marik could describe what was going on, or what the names of the jumps and tricks Bakura did were. He had honestly no idea. But he was able to tell that they looked extremely impressive, and from the cheering and screaming of the crowd around him, better than Atem had performed. Bakura soared across the ice. After his initial huge pause, he didn't stop for a second. His body moved flawlessly as he pulled jump after jump that Marik couldn't even imagine were possible. And even though he knew it was all because of Ryou that the other male was even able to do such stunts, he still had to acknowledge that Bakura was damn good at this awful sport.

He wasn't the only one to notice. From the sideline, Atem looked like he was sweating bullets under his heavy winter coat. He was going to lose, and pretty much everyone knew it. Until a lonesome bell from decoration around the rink wound up on the ice, directly in the path of Bakura's oncoming blade. Marik noticed it, but the moment he did Bakura had already hit it and was on the ground.

The crowd winced and groaned as one, and then surged up around Marik to help the fallen skater. Marik got to his own feet to get to Bakura and help, but the crowd around him wasn't allowing him to move forward very far. He tried pushing his way through and wound up falling for is efforts. When he finally managed to bulldoze his way to the center, a few other people had already helped Bakura up and were carrying him to the edge of the rink.

"Bakura!" Marik called out. The pale teen paused for a moment and told the people carrying him to stop.

"That bastard put that bell there! I fucking know he did!" Bakura raged.

"What happened? You didn't break anything, did you?" Marik asked. The white-haired teen was definitely favoring one leg more than the other, and his face was screwed up in subtle signs of pain.

"I don't think so, but it hurts like a bitch. I can't skate anymore, Marik," Bakura said. The anger suddenly dropped from his voice.

"Fuck, we're going to have to go to the hospital, aren't we?" Marik complained. His bath was getting further and further away. At this rate, even if the leg didn't feel like it was broken, it would be. And that would mean one long, cold night at the hospital, waiting for the bone to be set, and the—Bakura grabbed his arm, breaking him from his thoughts.

"I can't skate, Marik," the teen repeated. Marik nodded slowly, not quite understanding the significance of this. Bakura was staring at him, still not sounding as angry as he should have for the injury he'd been dealt, and Marik was starting to get a bad feeling, because whatever was coming, it was going to be even worse than spending the night in a crummy hospital.

"You're going to have to face him. We can't let him win."

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><p>Yay cliffhanger! The sequel to this one will be chapter twenty-three, so not a huge wait. So hope you liked this, and remember to review! Thanks! (Also, it is just me or is that new image manager thing sound cool as hell? I want to make covers for EVERYTHING now, but I'm not all that creative when it comes to anything besides writing. So derp.)<p> 


	22. My Friend Is By My Right

Oh mai gawd it's like the first time in forever I've updated in a timely fashion! Imagine that! It helps that I'd already written the first two scenes of this chapter some time ago, but still. This is an accomplishment. Who's got the champagne?

So anyways. I want to apologize first for the setting/plot of this. I really didn't want to have two high-school stories pop up so close to one another, because I really don't want to be that person that gets stuck in a rut and keep on writing the same thing over and over again. I wasn't expecting to wind up writing chapter twenty though, so that's my excuse. I also apologize for the present tense I cannot seem to stop writing, thanks to... certain fandoms, we'll say. At least I haven't started writing in second person yet too! (although whenever I try writing original things now, they more often than not wind up in present tense second person... It's so addicting!)

This particular chappie features Angst (which I don't care for much), Psycho (which I find irresistibly sexy after reading a fanfic that had both Thief and Psycho in it. Random sloppy makeouts are good.), Thief (which I obviously love), and maybe Deathshipping (?) in it. Have fun with that.

**Disclaimer!: **I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh. Or the song "Friday". Really. I don't.

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><p>Chapter Twenty-Two: My Friend Is By My Right<p>

Ryou tells him that he likes Marik.

Bakura is stunned by the information. The confession instantly pisses him off, and his first instinct is to sneer and insult—because that is what he does when backed into a corner—but he holds back only because this is Ryou.

Ryou is his friend. Ryou is one of his only friends. Bakura does not get along well with people. He normally does not bother with them. But by pure coincidence, he had gotten a job at the same restaurant as Ryou, and the nicer of the two of them had decided to make friends. Since then, they talk to each other at both work and school, however grudgingly on Bakura's part. He does not think he needs friends, but it is nice to have one, and so he does not want to ruin his friendship with Ryou by acting as his impulses dictate he should. So instead he tells Ryou congratulations.

"Do you think I should tell him?" Ryou questions.

Please stop, is what he really wants to say. But instead Bakura only says, "How should I know?"

"Well the two of you hang out together all the time, so I just thought you would know if it was a good idea," Ryou explains.

Marik is his second friend. The have had most classes together for the past two years. Over time, they started talking to one another, and since then have continued to do so. Although Ryou is his friend, it is Marik that Bakura spends most of his time with. He appreciates Ryou's kindness and his companionship, but it is Marik he gets along most with. Marik is more like him than Ryou, and while the nicer of the two white haired teens only shakes his head whenever Bakura does something he shouldn't, Marik joins right in and makes the activity that much more fun. Ryou is right when he says that Bakura should know if it is a good idea, and he does, but more than anything he wants to say that it is not.

"Do whatever you want," he says instead. "I'm sure he'd go for it."

"Oh thank you, Bakura!" Ryou exclaims happily. And then, in the spur of the moment, he dashes forward and throws his hands around Bakura in a hug. He only realizes what he has done after the action is completed, and pulls away hastily, knowing that his friend does not like things like that, but Bakura does not complain about it this one time. He finishes talking to Ryou, and then leaves. He wishes he could tell Ryou to just forget about Marik, but he is unable to.

00000

Bakura decides the next day that he should tell Marik about Ryou's little confession to him.

He knows that Ryou is planning on telling Marik himself, but he has no idea when the other male will work up the courage to do so, and besides, he wants to know for himself how Marik feels about this entire thing. He cannot tell Ryou that he thinks he should stay away from Marik because he does not want to lose the boy's friendship, alien as the idea is, but he has no problems with Marik telling Ryou the same thing. So he decides to go to Marik, because he really wants to know how the blonde feels about Ryou, and because maybe he has been agonizing about the answer to this question a bit too much for it to be healthy.

Marik is in the middle of a heated debate in the lunchroom with a large group of people. Whereas Bakura prefers to stay away from other people and eat by himself, Marik is more of a social butterfly. Clingy females who appreciate his looks and natural charm, and outgoing males who enjoy his charisma surround him. It looks like Marik is fighting the entire group by himself, but he seems to be enjoying himself. His face and eyes are lit up brightly, and Bakura almost does not want to pull him away from this sphere of livelihood, but he does so because he needs to know if Marik feels the same way about Ryou that the other apparently feels about him.

"Yeah, but you see, that doesn't make any sense because—could you hold on a minute Bakura—?"

"Marik, I need you to follow me, now. It's important," Bakura says, and tugs again on the other male's arm. Marik sighs and tells the other students to wait before hopping off the table he has situated himself atop of and finally grants his full attention to Bakura.

"Yes?" he asks a bit impatiently, but with an impish little smirk that lets Bakura know that he really doesn't mind all that much.

"Come with me," Bakura says, and leads him away. It is silly, but he wants to be alone with Marik when he tells him about Ryou's confession. He doesn't want anything to influence the way he thinks about it.

He leads Marik down one of the numerous hallways that lead to an even larger number of classrooms. It is lunchtime and so they are all deserted. This will do.

"Ryou likes you," he blurts out, which is not the way he wanted to do this thing. It is entirely too similar to the way Ryou told him about his attraction, and he does not want to think about that more than he has to now. Marik seems to take the news as well as he did. The blonde has not yet said a word. He's still just looking at Bakura like he can't quite comprehend the words that have come from his mouth.

"That's… Really?" Marik finally questions, and it's not what Bakura wants to hear at all. He does not want to have to say the words again, and he does not want Marik to sound interested in hearing them. What he wants is for Marik to laugh them off and say that he would never be interested in Ryou that way. He does not care if it is mean to his only other friend. He does not want the idea of Ryou and Marik together, in any way.

"Really. He told me yesterday and then asked what I thought he should do," Bakura replies.

"What did you tell him?" Marik asks with a quirk on his eyebrow, sounding way too intrigued by this for Bakura's liking.

"I told him to do whatever he wanted," Bakura shrugs. He wants to act like this doesn't matter and that he hasn't been thinking recently that saying those words to Ryou was the biggest mistake of his life, and he thinks he succeeds. His answer seems to hold some influence over Marik, but what it is, he cannot deduce. The faintly amused expression on the blonde's face has faded, and all that's left now is a slightly troubled look. Bakura cannot figure out what that means, and whether it's good or bad.

"So… do you think he'll confess?" Marik asks next. It's one bad question after another, and Bakura really doesn't want to think about any of it.

"How should I know? If he ever works up the courage, he might," Bakura answers, because remaining silent like he wants to do will only let Marik know that something's wrong. "You think you'll take him up on his offer?"

Marik frowns, and then laughs, and suddenly Bakura can breathe again. "No, I don't think I will. I don't want to hurt him, but Ryou's not really my type, you know?" he says. And then it's all right. Marik doesn't like him, and Bakura doesn't have to worry anymore. He feels exalted, and the magnitude of his worry seems silly and wholly out of place. He should have known from the start that Marik wouldn't have ever returned Ryou's feelings. After all, Ryou is his friend, but Marik is his best friend, and he should know better than anyone how the blonde thinks.

But then Bakura has to reconsider this, because while things are normal and he can forget about Ryou's silly love confession for a while, when he goes to school two days later, he finds Marik and Ryou sitting together and talking, just a little too close, and Ryou looks happier than he ever has before. Bakura feels his heart sink to the bottom of his shoes.

00000

"So the creampuff and the blonde skank are going out now."

Bakura is walking away from the school, and the thoughts he is entertaining are so similar to this sentence that it takes him longer than usual to notice that Malik has appeared beside him. Unlike with Marik, he does not like Malik. Never has, and he doubts he ever will. He can respect that Malik is just as much of an antisocial bastard as he, but he doesn't mix well with the psychotic blonde all the same. He doesn't mix well with a lot of people. And the two he does mix with happen to be…

"Are they now?" he asks, not quite managing to control his voice enough for the question to not come out as a snarl. Malik seems delighted by it.

"You mean you didn't notice?" he questions after his chuckling fit.

"Neither of them saw fit to tell me, if that's what you're asking. I noticed enough." He noticed more than he wanted to. He noticed that Marik lied, and he noticed that he hates this scenario even more than he thought he would. There is nothing that can possibly be right or acceptable about this, and he doesn't understand how Marik could not see this.

"Wonder why," Malik muses innocently. Malik has a reputation for being able to piss people off with the fewest of words, and right now Bakura cannot help but to understand how he has gotten it. He wants to do nothing more than to lash out and punch something, and with each word the man next to him says, that urge increases exponentially more.

"Marik told me," he continues. "Told me the very day Ryou asked him out. Sounded all excited about it and everything. Honestly, it's a bit pathetic that it was the creampuff doing the asking, and not the other way around, but I suppose something like this had to happen eventually. He seemed a bit tired of waiting, if you ask me."

Bakura doesn't know what Malik is talking about anymore, and he doesn't care. His blood is boiling and his head is clouded, and his fist, his fist is itching to strike and he is no longer judicious enough to hold it back. There is something horribly satisfying about knocking Malik down to the floor, and while it doesn't make him forget all of his troubles, violence is violence, even if he hasn't dealt it to the person he truly wants to.

Malik's leg hooks around his ankle and pulls him down with him. Bakura hits the sidewalk and doesn't have time to react before there is an arm around his neck that is pulling their faces flush together, and Malik is snarling at him.

"Don't get all fucking inimical with me because I'm pointing out the facts you don't want to hear. If you've got a problem with it, take it up with him." Malik's right, of course he's right, but there's nothing that can be done. He _can't_ take it up with Marik. He doesn't even know where to begin with Marik, how to start explaining what's wrong, and why he's so angry, because he doesn't understand himself. If there's one thing Bakura is, it's angry, but now it's not the passive anger he's used to, but an active fire urging him to do something to stop all of this. And he can't. And Malik knows it too. He can see the knowledge in the other's sharp smile.

"Of course, if you want to get even, then maybe I'm the perfect person to be talking to," Malik says. His voice is lower now, seductive and purring with a near-cloaked danger tingeing the edges. And Bakura's more than damn certain whatever comes next will be something he doesn't want to hear, but he's not leaving all the same. Because whatever this is, seeing Ryou and Marik hurts. It _hurts_, and he doesn't want to hurt the only two friends he has, but he knows that he is a petty and vindictive creature, and the promise of revenge is too tempting.

"You might not have Marik, but you can have the next best option," Malik explains slowly. Bakura frowns, because even he isn't messed up enough to think that having Malik can be the same as having Marik, and it's a bit too freaky to pretend, but he doesn't pull away. And Malik isn't done.

"What will Marik and Ryou say, when they see us together? It'll surprise them, won't it?" It would. Bakura can picture Marik's face now, the way his brows will furrow like they do when he's trying to work out a complicated problem.

"You can do the same thing to them that they did to you. And if you call me Marik once in a while, I promise I won't even be offended," Malik purrs. His face is closer now, and some time during the conversation their bodies have become less the tangled heap of two beings in a confrontation, and now something a bit different. The idea is captivating enough that Bakura doesn't mind. He doesn't mind a lot of things, actually, not even when Malik's lips brush up against his own in a way similar to how he could imagine Marik initiating a kiss. There's really nothing more he can do but to accept.

00000

They are surprised enough. Ryou is overjoyed the next day at school when Malik shows up out of the blue and grabs Bakura by his shoulders, spinning him around to lay a kiss on his lips passionate enough to be seen on a Hollywood screen. Well first, along with Marik, he is startled by the action more than anything else. Bakura has never communicated much with Malik in the past, a fact that is well known. But when Malik announces quite loudly that they are "going out", Ryou seems to forget this little contradiction in favor of congratulating them both.

Marik's reaction to the news is not quite so ecstatic. His face darkens exactly as Bakura had pictured it doing, and for a long time he does not say anything. Wearing a grin on his face and with the perfect amount of mock-hurt in his voice, Malik asks his brother if he is upset. This is the only thing that gets Marik talking once more. The blonde responds in a small voice that he's happy for them. He isn't really. Bakura can see this clearly enough. But he wanted to get even, and there isn't any point in asking Marik what's wrong.

Things are stilted between them after this. During lunch, although all four of them sit together at the same table, frequently conversation is lacking, and no eye contact is made between certain parties. When life had been normal and Marik had been Marik without Ryou, Malik had only ever been around long enough to throw a crude comment, and Marik had fluttered from one table at lunch to the next. Ryou always chose to sit with Bakura, who was normally alone, and after some time, Marik would join them, and they would laugh. There is no laughter now, and only Ryou seems genuinely determined to bring things back to the way they used to be.

Malik's presence is downright obnoxious, even to Bakura. The blonde at his side sits with an arm wrapped around Bakura's waist at all times, and continually pulls him over for random kisses trailed along his neck and collarbone. This irritates Bakura, but he deals with it. It seems that for every time Malik pulls one of his stunts, Marik and Ryou get ever closer together. And Bakura is able to stand it less and less. When the tension around them finally comes to a point, Bakura is the one who breaks it by storming off.

"Stupid! Stupid, stupid!" he swears. He's throwing his fist against a wall and he's not sure how long he walked away from the lunchroom before his anger boiled over, but there's no one around to see him now, and most thankfully, there is no Marik, and there is no Ryou.

"Fucking idiot!"

Of course the physical absence of the two he calls his friends does not really matter in the end. He is still tormented by just the thought of Ryou smiling at Marik, shyly holding onto his hand while they walk into the school together. He hates this. He hates the smile that Marik wears on his lips, and he hates the way he keeps feeling the blonde's eyes flicker over to him when he thinks Bakura is not paying attention. He hates it even more when those eyes are on Ryou.

"Goddammit!"

Bakura throws his fist again, but this time it doesn't hit the wall like he's planned for it to. Tanned hands encircle his. Bakura raises his eyes from the skin to the person and expects to see Marik. Marik, who has left Ryou to chase after him. The cocky smirk that's looking back at him is familiar, but it isn't because he's seen it on Marik's lips.

"It's hard, isn't it?" Malik questions. He's still smirking, but his voice is soft and trying to be comforting. It isn't quite succeeding, but Bakura doesn't recognize comfort well enough for it to matter.

"It's hard loving someone who so obviously wants nothing to do with you."

"I never said anything about that!" Bakura spits.

"You didn't need to," Malik grins back.

"Shut up. Just shut the fuck up," Bakura says. He wants to say something better, something that will refute this crazy idea that Malik's gotten into his head, but he can't find the words to do so.

"It's hard," Malik repeats again, softer now than before. He brings Bakura's hand to his lips and kisses the bruised knuckles and torn skin. Bakura watches.

"But it'll get easier. Just close your eyes and pretend that I'm him."

"That's fucked up. I'm not that pathetic," Bakura argues half-heartedly. His anger seems to have gone now, or in the very least subsided for the moment. He harbors no doubts that it will flare to life once more upon seeing Marik and Ryou. Ryou and Marik.

"I already told you, I won't mind if you do," Malik grins. "And if you do, it'll get easier. You won't have to run out on the two of them anymore. All that anger and pain you feel will just get tucked away into the back of your mind, and they'll never know how much their actions affect you. Just close your eyes and pretend."

There's something about Malik's voice. There's something about that subtle unbalanced melody that calms and transfixes, and Bakura's closing his eyes and doing the very thing he hates to do, but wants so much.

00000

Malik is wrong in some ways. It does get easier to block Marik and Ryou out, but Bakura is never able to tuck away those bothersome feelings he possesses. He just ignores them. And ignores them. And when he no longer can, he releases his frustrations out on Malik. Malik takes all he has to offer, whether it's punching or kissing or anything else. He takes it all with a crooked grin and lulling words and sharp teeth and fingers that leave marks when he fights back.

But Ryou and Marik don't know about any of that, and in the end, that's what matters. If they see a stray bite mark or bruise, then what does it matter? He and Malik are dating, after all. It's nothing Bakura's two friends aren't used to themselves.

Even though Bakura is able to keep himself in the presence of the two without screaming about how wrong this all is, the tension grows worse and worse. Soon even Ryou is unable to keep up his cheery façade and pretend like nothing is wrong. At lunch the poor boy silently eats his food whilst the two tanned brothers glare at one another over their trays, silently engaging in some kind of constant battle. Bakura notices but tries to stay out of it, only really becoming the center of anyone's attention when Malik feels the need to put on a show of affection.

When Bakura finally gets Marik alone for the first time in two weeks since the blonde began going out with Ryou, it is an awkward and tense situation that neither teen had been trying to set up.

Bakura happens to be going to class. Marik happens to have off this period, and usually goes to chat with various friends in the lunchroom. It is an unfortunate coincidence that both happen to be passing through the same hallway, at the same time. They see each other at the same moment, and although Bakura's head tells his body to keep on going, his legs come to a stop a few feet away from where Marik has also reached a standstill.

"Hey," the blonde greets. Bakura can tell easily enough that he's trying to sound casual. He's always been able to read Marik better than anyone else. He can also tell that the other student is failing miserable, succeeding only in not sounding as awkward as he could have. Of course, when Bakura returns the greeting, he is not much better.

"Hi." Silence. "How's Ryou?"

He means the question as a casual inquiry, a way to break the silence that has never existed between them before, but when he speaks it, Marik's face contorts in a strange way, like he's trying not to yell or cry, or both.

"Ryou's fine. He and I are going out later tonight. How's Malik?" Marik asks. His face is under control, but his voice is tightly strained and overly polite and cool. Bakura doesn't like it. He doesn't like the current of electricity that runs through him at the mention of anything that Ryou and Marik are doing together.

"Malik is good. Frisky as ever," he responds with, because really, what else is there to say about Malik?

Marik breaks first. His face contorts again in that manner that makes it look like he's ready to splinter, and then there's only anger, hot and irrational and completely familiar. He's closer now, fists bunches together and staring at the ground, unable to meet Bakura's face.

"When did you start going with Malik?" he asks. He's trying to keep calm and Bakura hears this, but to him all it sounds like is hypocritical bullshit.

"Around the time you became a thing with Ryou!" he yells, forcing Marik to look up at him. He doesn't want to show this emotion, but he can't keep it bottled up right now, and Malik is nowhere to be seen. "When did that happen, Marik? What happened to Ryou not being your type?"

"What happened is I got tired of waiting! I thought that maybe by taking the initiative on my own, I'd speed things up a bit! That's what fucking happened, Bakura, so what's your excuse? Why are you with Malik? You can't possibly like him!" Marik yells back. Bakura grows cold and his eyes narrow. The blonde is shaking with his anger and whatever other emotions are fueling this fit, and in the face of it all Bakura can do is restrain himself and keep the leash Malik had given him on tight.

"How I feel has nothing to do with you. You lied to me about Ryou. I'm not inclined in the least to talk to you about Malik," he says, ending the confrontation right then and there. Marik will have nothing else to say. He knows this already. When he walks past, the only action Marik takes is to watch him go.

00000

"Are you happy?"

Ryou plops down in front of Bakura on the table, tray in hand. He has brought a second one with him for Bakura, filled with meat and all the foods he knows his friend likes. Bakura grabs it and begins eating without waiting for Ryou to start his own meal. Marik and Malik are absent from this lunch. He does not know where they are, and he doesn't really care. Without them, he feels like he can actually breathe.

"What do you want to know now?" Bakura asks after he's finished chewing his food. He's hoping that Ryou will forget about the question, or change it to a different one, one that he feels like he can actually answer. He knows from the look on Ryou's face that this will not be the case.

"I asked if you were happy. With Malik," Ryou answers.

"You think I wouldn't be?" Bakura questions, molding his lips into the grin he has not worn for about three weeks now.

"I want you to be, but I don't know if you are. I think it's wonderful for you to have someone to care about, but I don't know if Malik is that person. He's… a nice person, but you don't look the same as you used to when you're with him," Ryou explains. Bakura stuffs a chunk of bread into his mouth and chews it slowly to give himself time to think of a good way to respond. He's been so concerned with ignoring his emotions, he's forgotten to keep up his image. The fact that Ryou has detected this is not a good one.

"Malik can be a handful," he decides to say at last. It's not a lie. Everyone who knows Malik would agree completely with that statement. "But I'm happy. Honest, Ryou, so don't start worrying about me."

"Someone needs to," Ryou replies back. "You're not going to do it."

Bakura quirks an eyebrow. "Ryou, all I do is worry about myself. I'm the biggest self-centered bastard you'll ever meet."

"I don't think so, but if you insist," Ryou finishes with a smile. Then for a moment his expression grows serious once more, and he stops playing with his food as he's been doing. "Just promise you'll tell me if you're ever upset, or if something goes wrong, okay? You're my friend, Bakura, and I don't like seeing you gloomy like this!"

"Okay, I promise. No need to twist my arm," Bakura says. The smile he manages to put out this time is much more relaxed, but requires no less effort than the previous one. He's lying, but it's not just that he's lying. Ryou's always been a worrywart, and he's always worried about him in particular. Before Bakura didn't care one way or another, but now he's feeling the beginning seeds of a guilt that he knows even Malik with his fanciful words won't be able to banish away once they take root.

00000

In a last-ditch attempt to return things to the way they used to be, Ryou suggests the four of them go on a double date. There could not be a worse suggestion made, but Ryou hasn't quite grasped the complexities of the situation they're in to see this. Marik is tied around Ryou's finger, so if the gentle student is going, so is he. Malik thinks this is the greatest opportunity in the world and cracks up into hysterical laughter whenever he thinks of the subject, so he's definitely going. And Bakura doesn't really have choice in the matter, in the end.

Ryou's picked out a rom-com. Whether there's some ulterior motive behind that, or it's just because he likes that kind of shit, Bakura isn't sure. He wouldn't put it past Ryou to hope to solve all of their problems with a movie starring Jennifer Aniston. It promises to be an even more horrible evening than Bakura was assuming it would be.

Bakura pays attention to the first five minutes of the movie before deciding it's not worthwhile to even pretend like he cares. The others are in similar states. Marik looks as if he's trying to watch it for Ryou's sake, but his eyes wander every few minutes or so. Malik makes no such pretenses. He starts the movie by placing a hand on Bakura's knee that slowly moves further and further upward, most often when his brother happens to be looking their way.

"Who's your favorite character so far, Marik?" Ryou whispers. He's seated between Marik and Bakura, even now trying his best to keep tempers under wraps. Ryou has never been one for speaking during movies, and Bakura is more than well aware that the only reason he is doing so now is to try and distract his boyfriend from the spectacle his other two friends are making. Malik's hand is now on Bakura's thigh, and he has been leaning over and dropping small kisses all alongside Bakura's neck. Bakura has been tolerating this behavior thus far, but even he is starting to get annoyed by it.

Marik jumps, visible even in the dark of the theater. He mumbles something, so doubt ashamed at being caught unaware. Bakura hears Malik chuckle lowly in his ear, and then the other male's hands are on his face, moving him in for a kiss. Bakura breaks away from him.

"Not now," he says shortly. He's too busy trying to see how Ryou will handle all of this to play Malik's games. Things are coming to a boil, he can feel it.

"Oh, are you upset?" Malik grins. "Let me make it better." He leans forward again, manages to touch his lips with Bakura's own before Bakura is pushing him away once more, feeling his temper rise.

"I said not now!" he growls. Malik pouts, but sits back down in his own seat. When Bakura turns to the movie screen, he catches sight of Marik quickly turning his own head back to the screen as well. Ryou is still looking at him though, concern showing through even in the dark. Bakura waves it off. He does not need Ryou to feel concerned or worried about him. He has done nothing to deserve it.

Things are okay for fifteen minutes or so. Until Malik gets ansty and starts draping his hands all over Bakura again. Bakura pushes him off, but it's a little too late to not cause a scene, and Malik is not so easily persuaded.

"Is something wrong?" he purrs into Bakura's ear.

"You're being an idiot, that's what's wrong. Now sit down and shut up! You're attracting attention." Both Marik and Ryou are looking at them, not even attempting to hide their gazes.

"Let them look. I don't care, do you?" Malik questions. He places his grinning lips against Bakura's cheek.

"Stop it already!" Bakura hisses.

"Mmm, make me," Malik retorts. He captures Bakura's lips forcefully, bruisingly, and Bakura opens his mouth to bite down and stop this nonsense, but as it turns out, he doesn't need to. Someone else is ready to rescue him from the clawed, grabbing hands of sweetly-tempting words.

"Get the fuck off of him!" Marik is standing, not giving a single damn about the people looking at him with incredulity or the ones readying themselves to shout at the brat who doesn't know how to keep quiet in a fucking movie theater. His fists are clenched and he's looking down at Malik like he's the most loathsome thing in the universe.

"Oh, Marik. Hello brother," Malik grins. He moves his face away from Bakura's own, but just barely, and even then, there's still an arm around his shoulders that Marik is glaring at.

"Get off him. He doesn't want you to keep doing that," Marik says lowly.

"Is that so? I didn't hear him say that. Surely he would tell me if he didn't like it. After all, I'm his boyfriend," Malik responds cheerfully. It's barely a conversation, but Bakura can feel the tension between the two brothers growing tighter and tighter. And when Malik says these final words, it snaps, taking Marik along with it. The blonde is full of fury and movements as he grabs his brother and pulls him up to stand in front of him.

Bakura doesn't know what's going on between them, but he knows that this is about him, and that because he's started it, he's going to damn well have to end it. If he doesn't do something now, either an angry moviegoer will start trouble, or an angry Marik will punch out his brother and get into his own trouble. The easiest thing to do is just grab Marik and run, and that's what Bakura does. He grabs Marik and runs out of the movie theater and away from Ryou and away from Malik, and it's horribly easy because it's what he's wanted to do this whole time.

When they leave, Malik drops down into the seat and begins laughing. He's still interrupting the movie, but the audience is too unhinged by the troubled noise to do anything about him. When he finally quiets down, they all look away and pretend like the scene didn't happen.

"You shouldn't have done something like that to them. It was very cruel," Ryou says.

"Maybe," Malik agrees. "But I think they'll see differently. If it was cruel, then they deserve it. They caused a lot of pain on their own, didn't they? Look, they left you all behind."

"That's all right. As long as they're happy, that's okay," Ryou says.

"Is it? That sounds like a shitty way to view thing."

"Maybe," Ryou agrees.

"I can help make it better. I won't mind any," Malik says.

"No, that's okay. I think I'll be fine on my own."

00000

Bakura stops when they have reached the sidewalk across from the theater. No one is around save for the ticket vender, and they are far enough away that Bakura doubts this will matter. Marik is panting and has kept his eyes firmly plastered to the ground this entire time. Bakura's not sure what he was expecting to happen, but he knows that he doesn't want this to turn into the last conversation he had with the blonde. He wants an explanation. He doesn't want to lose his friend.

"Marik. What was all of that?" he asks when it becomes too awkward to continue watching the other silently stand there. It's not the question he really wants to ask, but it's one that needs an answer all the same. When Marik looks up at him, he's angry and embarrassed.

"Why are you with him? I don't understand! He-he's such an asshole, and you've _never_ talked before now! You don't even seem like you _like_ him, so why?"

"Why are you with Ryou?" Bakura demands. His voice is rising and is anger with it, but he can't help it. This isn't like the last time. He's not going to walk away and go find Malik so he can punch and kiss and fight and do whatever he can think of to take his mind off the blonde he really wants to be with. Something's broken now. Marik's broken now. It will all have to come out.

"Because I thought it would fix everything! I've waited for _so—fucking!—long_—you stupid asshole, and you never did anything! I thought that if I went with Ryou, you'd finally have something to say, but all you did was start going out with Malik! Did you want him all along? Did I just read this wrong? You only hung out with me so you could get to him, and once I was out of the picture you decided what, that this was your chance? Is that right, Bakura?"

"What? No! How did you even _get_ such a stupid idea into your head?"

"Well it made sense to me! He's your boyfriend, so what else was I supposed to think?" Marik yells. The more he yells, the more he begins to shake, and more and more often his eyes are remaining on Bakura instead of the floor they're standing on.

"And what about me? You said you didn't want Ryou, but you went out with him anyways. You've got the person you want, so what do you care what I do with Malik?" Bakura questions sardonically. He doesn't understand a lot of what Marik is saying, but this is the point that hurts him the most. The fact that Marik lied, that Marik said Ryou didn't matter, and then all of that changed.

"He's not the person I want! How many times do I have to say that! I want you, you fucktard!" Marik screams. Bakura doesn't know what to say after that. He hasn't understood what Marik's problem has been the entire time, and now that he does he feels stupid. In hindsight, it all seems obvious, something he should have known and understood from the beginning. Now that he does, he doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know where he stands. He's made a mess of everything.

"But you want Malik, right? So I'll just stay out of your affairs from now on," Marik says. He sounds more distant than Bakura has ever heard him sound in his entire life. And now he's turning away to go. Bakura grabs him.

"I want you," he says. Marik's not looking at him. He's stopped, but he hasn't turned around, and Bakura doesn't know if he will.

"I don't want Malik, I want you. I always wanted you, but I thought you wanted Ryou all this time. So I went with your brother. He said it would hurt less that way." Marik still isn't saying anything. Panicking, Bakura continues on, saying whatever comes to his mind, whatever will prolong this moment until Marik has heard enough and turns around to face him again.

"But it didn't. It still hurt, I just tried to ignore it, and ignore how angry I got whenever I saw you with him, when you smiled at him. I didn't want to be angry with you or him. You're both my friends and I didn't want to lose either of you, especially not you. But I wanted you and Malik made it easier so I listened to him and went along with what he said. But I didn't ever want him. I wanted you. I want you."

Marik is still silent. Bakura doesn't know what to do any more. He feels Marik pull away from him and he tightens his hand, but Marik keeps going. He pulls away completely and it hurts so much that Bakura feels now more than ever like he wants to scream. He turns away from Marik. He doesn't want to embarrass himself in front of Marik any more than he has already done.

"Where are you going?"

He hears the voice at the same time the hand touches his shoulder. He looks up and sees Marik wearing a strained smile, but smiling all the same. "I thought you wanted me. So why are you leaving?"

Bakura turns around and before Marik has a chance to leave he's grabbing him tightly and holding him close and not caring about anything other than the blonde in his arms.

"You're an asshole. You're such a fucking asshole," he says. His voice wavers and he tries hard not to let it break completely. Marik leans up to him and kisses him. His arms grab onto him and hold tightly and his lips move desperately, like he's afraid. Bakura knows that he's afraid. He's every bit as desperate. He's afraid that if he stops, Marik will leave.

He doesn't want to stop, but he has to eventually. Marik pulls away enough to separate their lips, but doesn't leave. He's beautiful.

"I want you," he breathes.

"I want you," Bakura echoes back.

* * *

><p>Yay dramaangst! When I started this, it was going to still have drama, but a lot less than it wound up having, so eh. Also Malik was going to be a lot less creepy. Because the only thing that struck me as I was writing this was "Damn are you _creepy!_"

As always, please remember to review, and thank you!


	23. Now You Know It

Hello my wonderful readers! Another quick update! This chapter was actually really easy to write, for whatever reason. I started writing it on Sunday and finished on Monday, heheh. It's the sequel to chapter twenty-one, and that's really all there is to say! Actually I lied, there's more. My summaries seem to be getting crappier and crappier. Sorry for that. Along with my inability to write good titles, I suppose my summaries kind of fail too. Eh. Oh well, chapter now.

**Disclaimer: **I still do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or the song "Friday" by Rebecca Black.

* * *

><p>Chapter Twenty-Three: Now You Know It<p>

Some might have called it cruel, or cheating. Some might have thought him unkind. A worse person might have gotten to their feet and punched him. Atem liked to think that every action he chose to take was for a reason, and a very good one at that. In this case, the reason he has for throwing the little bronze bell onto the ice and watching with a self-satisfied grin on his face as the former tomb robber took his fall was because there was no way he was going to allow himself to lose. Not to scum like that. Sure, the fate of the world didn't rest on his shoulders this time around, but it just did not look good for his image if he managed to be defeated by his opponent. Thus, the bell.

Which had worked wonderfully, by the way. The tomb robber had skated right into its path as if a magnet had pulled him to it. Or divine intervention. Atem wouldn't dare think that the gods couldn't have granted him such providence.

The tomb robber was still off at the sidelines, surrounded by a small mob of people. From the looks of things, he wasn't going to be getting up any time soon. Which meant that this victory fell to Atem by default. Yuugi was a professional ice-skater. There was no one in that crowd who would be able to stand up for Bakura and beat him. The match was as good as his.

A fact that he decided he would now flaunt in the face of his opponent. The once-Egyptian Pharaoh skated gracefully over to the crowd, which parted at a glance to allow him to reach the fallen skater. He'd been propped up against a bench, and was wincing as a fellow skater prodded at his injured leg. Beside him was the tomb keeper. Marik looked up and glared hard at Atem as he came to a stop beside them.

"How are things?" Atem asked politely. It was still his duty to act regally and compassionately, even to those who did not deserve it.

"It's not broken," the skater by Bakura's leg responded. The person was a male, young, brown hair, most likely a college student of some kind. "It's badly sprained, but you won't require a visit to the hospital. It'll swell a lot in the first two days, but by the end of the week you should start to see that go away. I wouldn't put any pressure on it for a week, at least."

"Well isn't that good news?" Atem said. "It certainly looked like a bad fall, but you must have been lucky. Unfortunate that you couldn't have waited until _after_ the match to slip, but then we both already knew what the outcome would be anyways, didn't we? Evil never succeeds, tomb robber, and this match is just another way of Fate telling you—"

"Now hold on," Bakura interrupted, quite rudely too. "Who said the match was over? It certainly wasn't me."

Atem raised one elegantly sculpted eyebrow high into the air. Unless the thief truly thought he could skate on that leg, then yes, the match was over. And even if he _was_ that masochistic, the match was still over. There was no way he could recover in points after that fall. It was impossible.

"Did you hit your head as well, thief? Perhaps the gentleman over there should take a look at it. I believe I have won. You cannot skate, and there is no one here who could beat me," Atem explained, slowly, just in case the thief was having a hard time understanding. Bakura ignored all of the consideration Atem was taking for him and instead began to laugh that highly uncivilized brackish laugh of his.

"You're right, I can't skate anymore. You saw to that. But _Marik_ still can."

For the first time, Atem truly paid attention to the blonde sitting beside Bakura, still glaring at him as fiercely as ever. After Battle City, he'd let the tomb keeper slip from his mind. He'd heard from Yuugi and his friends that Marik had once again joined the side of evil and was plotting with Bakura, but Atem hadn't worried. He'd beaten the blonde once and was sure he could do so again.

Now he thought back to when he'd first arrived on the ice rink. He'd been concentrating on Bakura of course, had barely paid Marik any mind at all other than to note in his subconscious that the things he'd heard were true. He didn't have a good idea of how Marik had been skating, but from the bit he remembered, it hadn't been well. And even if he had been reasonably good at the skill, it didn't matter in the face of a pro. The fact that the thief sounded so serious while saying this plan of his were comical. Atem would have laughed out loud if the image such an action would have portrayed wouldn't break his cool façade so terribly.

"If he thinks he can," he said instead, letting his real opinion on the matter be known by the tone of his voice.

"He can and he will," Bakura vowed, still sounding so serious and certain. It would have worried Atem just a bit more if Marik held even an ounce of the confidence the tomb robber had in him. The former keeper was still glaring at him, but there was an unmistakable air of uncertainty and unease around him.

"Are you sure about this? I wouldn't want you to embarrass yourself more than you already have," Atem responded. Actually, he wouldn't mind if this was the case at all, but he was going to act civil here and keep that thought in his mind.

"No one is going to be embarrassing anyone, least of all me," Marik announced, finally succeeding in truly capturing Atem's attention. The ex-Pharaoh regarded him coolly. "I'll pick up right where Bakura left off, and I'll beat you too."

"Again, if you think you can," Atem responded, allowing himself just the smallest of grins.

"You'll be fine," Bakura said to the blonde, lowering his voice just a bit, as if it would keep Atem from hearing his encouragement. "I had just over a minute left. All you need to do is skate through that last minute, and we'll win."

Atem did not even bother stating the futility of this plan. He had a feeling that Marik was already more than well aware of it.

"Since you're new to this competition and have been sitting out for the majority of my match with the tomb robber, I'll allow you to have a few moments to warm-up before we begin," Atem said. Marik glared at him, and the former king sighed. It was just no use trying to be nice to these types of people.

Regardless of his attitude, Marik took him up on his offer. After talking to the three judges and clearing his participation with them, Marik slowly made his way to the center of the rink. Atem watched closely. While he was almost sure what little he noticed of Marik hadn't been good, there was always the (highly improbable) chance that he was wrong. This was his chance to see Marik's skills for himself. Of course there was no way the blonde could be good enough to best him, now way at—

Marik fell. He'd started out slowly, making Atem think that he was just getting his pace down, warming up and getting a feel for the ice. This was not the fact. Marik was not moving slowly because he was planning on picking up speed as he went. He was going slowly because he could not skate. A fact Atem picked up on like a crow eyeing fresh road kill the moment Marik tripped and went down. He could not remember Marik having skated well because Marik _did not_ skate well. This was going to be even easier than he'd thought.

"Have you realized what a mistake this was yet, thief?" Atem questioned politely at the ingrate seated beside him.

"The only mistake that's being made here is you agreeing to this. You'll see. Marik will beat you. I know he will," Bakura grinned, eyes on the blonde as he struggled to get back to his feet without falling again.

"Your show of support is cute, but completely unfounded. I'll be winning this match," Atem said. And he would. Oh yes he would.

After a few more embarrassing moments of watching Marik attempt to skate (and fail horribly), Atem had an idea. He already knew he was going to win, but causing his opponent to agonize and despair over this fact couldn't hurt at all. In fact, it wounded rather fun. So he took his leave of the thief, patting himself off for any ice that may have gotten on him. There wasn't any, but he did not mind that the action was for appearances only. Bakura quirked a questioning eyebrow and was ignored as Atem gracefully made his way to the middle of the rink to join Marik.

"What are you doing here?" Marik demanded. The poor boy was already out of breath and he hadn't even done anything yet. This would be too easy. Atem liked showing just how much better he was at anything really, but even he felt a little bit bad being in this scenario. If for nothing else, then because the audience would be too busy grimacing at how terrible Marik was to remember how glorious he'd been.

"I grew a bit bored sitting there and watching your rather futile attempts at skating. I thought it would be nice to give the audience something to watch that would take their attention off of you," Atem replied. No one could ever say that he wasn't generous.

"Fuck you," Marik snarled, and turned and skated away. Of course, the action may have impressed Atem a bit more if the blonde hadn't nearly fallen a second time after executing the turn, but alas, he had.

Atem turned and skated. What Marik was doing could hardly be called movement. What Atem executed was art, in its most brilliant form. He knew that he did not need to show off during this little stunt of his, but he could not help it. It was in his blood to be adored and looked up to, to be worshipped. He could not very well just ignore his talent in favor of putting on a mediocre show to make Marik look slightly better. (He didn't really think that would work, anyways. There was no helping Marik.)

So he skated and gave it his all. Not his all all, because he had already given that in the match vs. Bakura, but he did as well as he thought the situation called for. Soon he could hear claps and cheers as the audience forgot completely about the poor spectacle that was the ex-tomb keeper and lost themselves in the splendor that was the once Pharaoh of all of Egypt. It was a shame when the judges called that the warm-up period had ended, and it was time again to start the match.

Atem skated over to Marik, wanting to give him some last words of encouragement. His fellow skater was standing in the middle, legs spread to give him the balance he needed to continue standing. His body was shaking, and Atem almost found it in himself to care that the child was so terrified he was probably crying.

"You know, you do not have to go through with this. The thief won't die because of yet another loss," Atem said. Marik's shaking continued.

"Tomb keeper?" Atem questioned. He raised a gloved hand, not sure whether or not he should touch the other male. His choice was made for him. Marik threw his head back and exploded into a frenzied-sounding evil laugh, the likes of which Atem had not heard in quite some time. He yanked his hand back down to his side.

"Haha ha ha haaaaa! You think I'm _scared_? You think I'm going to _lose_? Guess again, Pharaoh!" Marik exclaimed. His eyes were bright and burning, and a wide grin danced on his lips. Atem felt himself gulp. Marik looked _delicious_, and he suddenly felt the strangest burning hatred for the thief that had him.

"Well I've got news for you! I've figured out how to beat you! The only person who will be losing today is you! Bakura and I will have our revenge!"

"That's impossible!" Atem managed to force out. "Yuugi is a professional ice-skater! You can't beat me!"

"Oh I can't, can I?" Marik questioned sarcastically. He was still smirking, and even with the cold wind and the rush of his words turning his face red, he was _still_ the best-looking person in the whole park. "You and Bakura are able to skate as well as you are because of your hikaris. Unfortunately for me, I'm not a professional ice-skater, and neither is my yami. But, my yami _is_ a psychotic personality disorder created and given life by my own mind. If I want him to suddenly be the best ice-skater in the world, then he damn well be! And that ability will also be shared by me."

Marik was still hot as hell, but now dangerously so, and Atem was starting to feel the beginnings of an emotion that might have been described by some as worry.

"Oh, looks like the match is about to begin. They're calling you over to the sides, Pharaoh. I really hope you did your best. You're going to need it," Marik said sweetly. And then, the damn tease, he blew a kiss to Atem as the ex-Pharaoh shakily made his way back to the rink.

The continuation of the match began. It was obvious from the first ten seconds that Marik was suddenly a hell of a lot better than both Atem and Bakura. And, because he had been so terrible during the warm-up round, the fact that he was amazing now thoroughly blew the audience and the judges away. Atem was definitely starting to lose his cool. Marik was doing moves he didn't even know were possible.

"Bet you're really starting to feel it now, eh Pharaoh?" Bakura called to him from a few seats over. Atem grit his teeth and ignored him. He was not going to stoop down to the level of some common thief. And yes, he _was_ starting to feel it, and if he still wanted to be the victor of this little match, he was going to have to do something, and fast. There was a little more than thirty seconds left.

What had worked before would work now, he decided. He didn't really have the time to think of a different option, though he was loath to pull the same stunt twice. He quickly grabbed a second bronze bell from the decorations around the rink, and after carefully figuring out the best spot for it to land, tossed it onto the ice. His aim was true and it soared and fell right where he wanted it. All he needed to do now was wait for Marik to skate into it and fall.

Marik was coming! The blonde had one leg stretched out far in front of him, his arms and head thrown back behind him in one of the most beautiful moves Atem had ever seen. He almost felt ashamed that he would be the one to ruin such beauty. But he could not allow himself to grow a conscience now. Marik's beauty aside, he had to win this. He could not let two villains such as these beat him in anything.

Marik went into the air. The bell remained untouched on the ice, but he'd been heading right for it, he _had_ to have hit it. Atem watched him spin in the air, form infuriatingly perfect. He must have jumped over the bell before he could hit it, that was the only way he could have missed it. But it was okay. Marik was coming back down, and he was all set up to land on the bell. If that happened, it was over. Atem would win. The world would be right again. He held his breath.

Marik landed. One leg curved and caught the bell on his blade, let it dangle there for a second. Then that same leg shot out, sending the bell flying into the air and directly into Atem's face. It smashed into his nose before he was even aware of what had happened.

"My nose!" Atem cried, too surprised to worry about whatever image he was currently projecting. He hoped to the gods it wasn't broken. He could feel blood gushing out of it, and oh boy would Yuugi be upset if he wound up having to go to the hospital.

"Hey! He's bleeding!" Suddenly Atem found himself being helped to his back to stop the blood flow, the student who'd taken a look at Bakura's leg hovering in front of him and trying to make him remove his hands long enough for him to see the damage. Atem shoved the kid out of his way, eyes wide. There were only a few seconds left now. He had to see what happened. He had to see who won.

He heard the crowd let out a huge cheer, and made his way to a sitting position quick enough to see Marik end the match with a beautiful landing that sent up another wild cheer. The judges didn't even hesitate to hold up their cards. Each one of them held up a big 10. It was over. Atem had lost.

"Take that, Pharaoh!" He didn't even see the thief; the audience had all gotten up as one and moved to swarm Marik. He'd lost. He couldn't believe that he'd actually lost.

"I… I failed," Atem said to himself.

"That sounds a little extreme to me. You did pretty well, just not well enough. Now can you lay back so I can see that nose of yours?"

Was this what he'd been reduced to? Alone, left at the sidelines with only a medical student to look at him as everyone else ran over to congratulate the winners? How had this happened? How was this even possible? He couldn't lose! He was Atem, the once-Pharaoh of an entire country! He'd had thousands of underlings at his feet, and he'd always been able to beat the tomb robber and whatever nefarious scheme he'd come up with! Losing wasn't possible! It just wasn't!

"Well it's broken all right. If you lay here long enough you might get the bleeding to slow, but your best bet is trying to get to the hospital as soon as possible. Do you have a car?"

Atem pushed past the student, his nose the least of his worries right now. He didn't want it to heal crookedly, but before a trip to the hospital, a trip to the victors was in order.

They were surrounded by cheering spectators near the middle of the rink. Marik was smiling and laughing and doing his best to support Bakura on his injured leg. Atem wanted to call them out, but even now, in such a disgraceful condition, he was still royalty and had to let the commoners such as them know that.

"A good match, Marik, Bakura," he said as he approached them. The mob of skaters fell silent around them. Marik's smile changed into a tight line, and Bakura wasted no time in scowling at him.

"Well, I think we all tried our best," Marik responded.

"It's just too bad that your best wasn't good enough, even with all of your cheating," Bakura sneered.

"I did no such—"

"Honestly Atem, if you're going to lie about it, you might want to try using a different tactic next time. Did you really think I wasn't going to be on the lookout for any stray decorations that just 'happened' to make their way out on the ice?" Marik questioned, grinning now. Atem clenched his hand, reminded himself that he was above them in the social order, and unclenched it. He held his head high, even with blood running down his regal neck.

"Yes well, it's a good think you were being careful then. It would have been a shame if there had been any further accidents. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think it's about time that I leave. Perhaps we can have another match someday," Atem said stiffly.

"Yeah, we'll whoop your ass then too!" Bakura called out at him as he made his way off the ice. Behind him, Marik laughed.

"Now that we won, can we pleeassee go back so I can take a bath? I'm freezing!"

* * *

><p>I've really got nothing to say here. Like, at all. Which is strange, because usually I go on and on. But as always, please remember to review, and thank you!<p> 


	24. Yesterday Was Thursday, Thursday

Chapter twenty-four, herp. We're getting closer and closer to the end, and this excites me. Also makes me sad, because this is just about the same length as Blood but I managed to get it out so much faster. Sob. My updating speed is so terrible...

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh. Or this song called "Friday."

* * *

><p>Chapter Twenty-Four: Yesterday Was Thursday, Thursday<p>

"It's nearly midnight. I don't want you staying up much longer."

"Are you listening to me? Marik!"

"Just a little bit longer, Isis," Marik muttered, flipping distractedly through the yellowed pages of just one of the old tomes set out in front of him.

"No. A little bit longer always turns into two hours when you're like this. I want you to come home with me and get a good night's sleep for once," his sister argued softly. There was no point in being forceful with him; she could already tell that her brother was fully absorbed in his task.

"I can't stop yet, I'm almost there. I can feel it. I'm close," Marik replied. Isis shook her head.

"Marik, you've been saying that for a year now," she replied sadly. The words, or maybe her tone of voice, caused Marik to look up at her from his task. His eyes looked heavy and tired, and his skin had lost some of its tan from too many hours spent in dark, dank places like this.

"I know," he said harshly. "That's why I can't stop yet." Then he turned and went back to his book.

"I'm going home now. I don't want to leave you here by yourself. Come with me, please?" Isis pleaded. She did not think he would listen to her. He didn't.

"I'll by fine by myself," Marik waved, barely taking his eyes off the page her was searching. Isis remained by his side for a moment longer, waiting to see if he would change his mind. She hoped that he would but knew that he would not. She did not understand what he saw in those old books and records that could possibly be of help to him. She'd done her own research, and knew that the records that would help her brother with his task no longer existed, if they ever had. Yet beside him rested a thick notebook, filled with scratching and notes and questions, all aimed at accomplishing the one task he'd been working on for so long now.

She said goodbye to him as she left, but she didn't think he heard. Marik's head was bowed as he hurriedly scribbled notes down into his notebook. He seemed to have found something he thought would help. Isis just hoped that he would remember to go home tonight instead of spending another long night pouring over books. Though she didn't believe that would happen, either.

00000

Once upon a time there'd been a thief. He was the best thief in the world.

The best in the world? Really? I find that hard to believe, coming from someone who doesn't even know how to operate a tv.

Will you shut up about that already? I told you, I have better things to do with my time than learn of all the silly technical appliances you humans like to sit in front of nowadays.

All you needed to do was press a button. That's it.

I fail to see how that pertains to my skills as the greatest thief in the world.

I just thought the greatest thief in the world would have some amount of intelligence. Maybe I was wrong.

Just shut up. You're ruining the story. All right, now where was I?

You didn't know how to work a tv. Oww!

So this thief was the greatest in the world. There was nothing he couldn't steal, and no tomb he couldn't break in to. Everyone knew of him and the tales of his victories. Everyone. And although there were numerous amateurs who longed to work with him, this thief trusted no one but himself. It was stupid to trust in other thieves, and this thief, contrary to what some might believe, wasn't stupid. He couldn't allow himself to die because he had a mission to accomplish. It was his destiny to kill a king.

Are you trying to audition for a movie, or did you really just sound all dramatic like that on accident. Because really? Who are you trying to impress?

The Pharaoh was an idiot. Everyone knew that, but the guy was the Pharaoh, so there wasn't much anyone could do to stop his tyrannous rule. Pharaoh's were the sons of the Ra and all that. So when the asshole Pharaoh did things like massacre an entire village for no reason, no one did anything about it. Fortunately, the Pharaoh died, and his bratty son became the next Pharaoh. He wasn't much better at it than his father, but again, no one dared to go up against him. Except for the thief.

The thief wasn't afraid of the Pharaoh, son of the Gods or not. He wasn't afraid of incurring the wrath of the Gods, because he knew what he was doing was right. The Pharaoh's rule needed to end, and the thief was the one who was going to do it. So, after many harrowing adventures that won't be described here because a certain imbecile won't sit still and stop bitching so I can fucking speak, the thief finally made his way to the Pharaoh's palace and confronted him with the grandest entrance of all time.

…

Well? If the entrance was so grand, aren't you going to tell me what it is?

Nope.

Come on! You love to brag!

Did I not just get done saying that I wouldn't be going into any further details due to a certain someone?

You cannot possibly mean me! I've been nothing but on my best behavior this entire time! What was that snort for? You know it's true!

Don't care.

Fine then. I'll stop interrupting you. Now can you just get on with it?

I'm not going back on my word now, no matter how much you bitch and moan about it. Lean to keep your mouth shut next time.

That's not what you said last night…

What happened a few hours ago has no bearing on our current story, regardless of those who may want it to. Now keep quiet.

00000

Marik woke with a start. His hand knocked the small book light he carried with him off the table. He scowled at it and bent to pick it up. His phone told him that it was nearly nine in the morning, meaning he'd been asleep for five or so hours. It was the longest period of time he'd spent asleep for the past four days, but he didn't feel well rested. His shoulders felt stiff and his back hurt, and even more annoying was that he'd missed out on valuable time he could have spent doing research.

He looked at the large book in front of him and remembered that he'd reached the end of the section he thought would be useful. He'd been staring at his notes, trying to decide if what he'd written the other day held any relevance given what he'd learned now. He'd fallen asleep before he'd been able to come up with an answer.

He looked at his notes again now, but the letters blurred in front of his eyes and he shook his head, trying to wake himself up more. He hated falling asleep in dusty old libraries like this. He always felt more tired when he woke up.

"Coffee," he muttered to himself. "I need coffee."

He gathered his notes and replaced the book, and stood up with a stretch. The library was fairly empty at this point in the morning, and of the few people that were there, no one paid much attention to him as he left.

The sun hurt his eyes when he stepped out, and he could already tell that the day was going to be a hot one. On the way back to his house, Marik made sure to stop and grab a cup of coffee, strong, black. He used to hate coffee, but as he gulped it down now, he barely tasted it. Isis was constantly telling him to stop drinking so much and that it wasn't healthy for him, but he didn't really care. None of what he was doing was particularly healthy, another fact that upset his sister and brother. But he needed to do it. He could be healthy when he was finished.

00000

So the thief entered the Pharaoh's throne room with possibly the grandest entrance and flourish in the world, and confronted the man himself. There was a big battle that won't be talked about, and it was all very intense and interesting and completely failed due to rotten luck on the thief's part, and a moronic demon.

Demon? What demon? You never told me this before.

And I'm still not going to now. Later maybe, if you can last long enough for me to finish this story.

But I don't care about _this_ story! I want to know about the demon that made you lose!

I didn't _lose_, per se. I just didn't exactly win.

So you lost.

No.

That's what it sounds like to me.

_No._ The thief accomplished what he set out to do and ended the Pharaoh's reign. The Pharaoh sealed his soul away to stop the demon, so Egypt was free of him. It just didn't work out exactly as the thief had wanted. Instead of ruling Egypt himself, _his_ soul was also sealed away.

You never told me how that happened, you know.

A story for a different day. I haven't finished this one yet, so stop asking so many useless questions.

_I_ don't think they're useless. Don't give me that look! I am _not_ an idiot!

So the thief succeeded in his mission, but only halfway. His soul was locked inside a magical ring, and he remained in it for 3,000 years, only having the chance to exist outside of it when a human who wore the ring was able to become his host. It was a pretty shitty way to live, but the thief took comfort in knowing that his ancient enemy the Pharaoh was also living the same way, for he too had been locked away into an item.

An item that the thief spent his time looking for whenever he had possession of a body, which wasn't often. When it did happen, he couldn't ever find the Pharaoh's spirit, for it remained buried under some sand for a very long time. But the thief kept looking, knowing that if he ever wanted rest, he would have to finish what he set out to do so long ago, and destroy the spirit of his enemy completely.

00000

"Marik?"

"Hmm."

"It's getting late. Perhaps you should go to sleep."

"Your sister is worried about you, you know."

Marik sighed and put his pencil down, turning from his notes and books to look into the troubled face of his brother.

"Is this talk going anywhere, Rishid? Because if not, I have work to do. You know that."

"Yes, I know what it is that you're trying to do," Rishid answered. "But Marik, you need to sleep. These long nights aren't good for your body. You need to rest, maybe take a break from all of this." Marik's face hardened, and he turned to close the book he'd been looking at. Then he faced Rishid once more, ready for whatever direction this talk was going to take.

"I can't take a break. If you really understand what I'm trying to do, then you would know that. I have to keep trying. I have to keep looking for a way. I can't stop now!" Marik shouted.

"Marik, will you please—"

"No! I know what you're going to say, and I won't. I'm close to an answer, I can feel it! I've looked through so many books, ancient scrolls, old records… I _have_ to be getting close. All I need is a little more time and I'll find what I'm searching for, so I'm not going to stop now, no matter what you say," Marik said.

"Marik," Rishid said, trying to speak as softly as he could. He didn't want to upset his brother more than he already was, but this couldn't continue. Marik was looking worse and worse as more time went by without finding any answers. Isis was right to worry as much as she would. This type of behavior needed to stop, and if he had to be the one to make Marik face the truth, then he would, even if the younger boy hated him for it. This was no longer a way of coping. This was obsession, and unhealthy.

"Marik, there _is_ no answer. Your sister has done her research and I've looked into the matter myself. We haven't found anything because there _isn't_—"

"You aren't looking hard enough," Marik interrupted, face hard, fists clenched as he stood up to face his brother. "Both of you don't care about this as much as I do. You aren't looking hard enough. There _is_ an answer, I just have to find it—!"

"No, Marik," Rishid continued. "Nothing can be done, short of digging the Ring up itself. It and the rest of the Sennen Items are gone, Marik. Even if you could somehow get to the chamber they're buried in, his soul would no longer be there. You _know_ that. There is no way to get him back. He's gone."

"No he's not!" Marik shouted. Rishid was more than surprised to see that his eyes were wet and shining wildly. "He's not! I'm going to bring him back! I don't care if you and everyone else says it's impossible, because I know it's not! I'll find an answer and then I'll show you!"

Rishid raised a hand, wondering what he could possibly say to calm the young boy down. The last time he'd seen Marik show this much emotion had been the day that the Pharaoh had won the duel against the thief and ended everything once and for all. During the spectacle Marik had acted as the others had, but once it had ended and everyone had gone back to Domino City, his true feelings had shown, and both Rishid and Isis had learned of just how deeply their brother and the thief had been tied. He was acting now much like he had that day, and Rishid didn't like to see it any more than he liked seeing his brother look as listless as he had been.

"Marik, please calm down, I wasn't trying to upset you, I was only—"

"Just shut up and leave!" Marik yelled. The tears were falling freely now, but the boy himself looked anything but sad. Distressed, but the face that looked at Rishid was one of furious anger.

"Get out of here! I don't want to have to listen to you anymore!"

Leaving wouldn't do anything. He knew just as well as Isis did that Marik couldn't keep running away from the truth and pretending like everything would be okay. He couldn't keep pushing himself like this. There was no way to bring the thief back, and that was a fact that Marik would have to accept, sooner or later. Rishid hoped that it would be sooner. He prayed that it would be sooner. He didn't like seeing Marik like this, and he wanted nothing more than for his family to have normalcy after so many years of pain. But Marik wasn't ready to face the truth just yet, and so he left.

00000

Okay, so what comes next?

I'm getting to that point if you would just be quiet for a minute.

Oh come on, you can't even say that this time! I gave you like five whole minutes of silence, so get on with the story! I want to know what happens, and I'm getting hungry.

Really? I could have sworn you ate your fill just a little while ago.

Was that an innuendo? Are you coming on to me? Hey, why'd you scoff like that? Don't look at me like that; I _know_ you think I'm sexy.

So after a great many years of being locked inside his golden prison—

Hey! Don't just ignore me!

—the thief finally found a host who would be receptive to possession, and was able to take control of a body once again. Not only that, but the thief knew the moment he took control of the body for the first time that his enemy was also alive at this time.

How'd you know that? Some kind of spirit connection vibe? That just sounds stupid.

_Shut. Up._

…

So the thief was in luck. He would be able to complete his mission and destroy the Pharaoh once and for all. All he needed to put his plan into motion was gain control of the other six items like the one his spirit resided in. With them, he would not only have the item that housed the soul of the Pharaoh, but ultimate power. So, using his own item, the thief set out to collect them all.

Like Pokemon. Gotta catch them all. Except you can't, because the moment you think you've caught all one hundred and fifty of the buggers, a new game comes out, and you've got to catch a hundred more, including the ones you already caught! I call shenanigans!

It's all just a clever ploy to get money.

I _know_ that!

Well then stop buying the games.

I can't! They're too damn addictive. And I _will_ be the Pokemon master! All other Pokemon trainers will have to bow before my superior Pokemon prowess! Wahaha!

_Ahem._ He found the boy carrying the Pharaoh's spirit fairly quickly. By a stroke of luck, the thief's host and the Pharaoh's own went to the same school, were something close to friends. So it was easy for the thief to keep an eye on his enemy and wait for the precise moment to strike. He did so during a dueling tournament, but at the last moment the Pharaoh and his friends foiled his plan. The thief was able to gain one of the items during the tournament however, so all was not a complete loss.

The thief did not get another chance to encounter his enemy until a second tournament was set up. But before he could go after the Pharaoh, his item felt the pull of another close by, and so the thief ran to the source of the pull.

Oh oh! This is where I come in, isn't it?

The thief's item led him to a powerful item holder who also held a grudge against the Pharaoh for wrongs that had been done to him and his lineage for as far back as any could remember. The thief, sensing that this young man's anger and planning would go well with his own, joined the man and together they vowed to get their revenge upon the Pharaoh for his many injustices.

00000

Marik threw the book against the wall. He smiled grimly as yellowed pages fell from its binding and scattered across his floor. It might have been a centuries-old relic to some, but to him right now it was just an annoyance.

He knew that he was getting closer to his answer, but it was getting harder and harder to find valid information. What seemed useful in one scroll would be contradicted by the information in the next. His notebook had in recent days been reduced to pages of angry scribblings, the art of a child having a temper tantrum rather than the notes of a dedicated researcher they'd been at the beginning of all this.

He was off his game. He had been for a week now. He'd go to libraries and old temples with the intent to study, but would wind up becoming frustrated and yell at the walls, or fall asleep before he'd even started. He was getting more sleep now than ever before, but all the wasted time served to do was throw him further and further out of sync. He dreamt now. He always had, of course, but now he remembered his dreams when he wished he hadn't. His dreams used to resemble the real world and the life he lived, but the fact that no they no longer did tortured him. He wished for the days when he used to have nightmares. They were far better than the memories his subconscious chose to bring up now.

Rishid had ruined everything. It was all his fault, coming in here and bothering him, telling him lies… Rishid and Isis didn't care about this like he did, that was why they'd been unable to find anything! There _had_ to be an answer! There had to be! He just needed to try harder, keep searching, keep taking notes and reading and learning…!

Rishid was wrong. Risid couldn't find anything because they weren't invested like he was. They weren't the ones who had sat out under the sun for hours, trying to find a way back to the tablet the Sennen Items had been placed in, they weren't the ones who had returned to that underground tomb in search of answers…! He was! He'd done all of that, and he wasn't going to let it be for nothing! What his siblings said didn't matter, because he knew better!

"I'll bring you back," Marik vowed. His hands trembled. "I'll do it. I will. I promise."

00000

So what happened then?

What do you mean?

Well what happened after the thief met up with the powerful item holder?

Oh, so you want me to continue?

Well duh, otherwise I'd have left by now!

Very well then. Hmm, what happened next? I suppose the two established a partnership. Both wanted to see the destruction of the Pharaoh, and both had something the other wanted. The thief wanted the man's item, and the man wished for the thief's cooperation in achieving his own wants. It was only natural for them to decide to work together.

But…?

But both were planning on betraying the other. The thief had spent too long in the dark of his prison, and had forgotten the ways of humans and how they acted and how to act to them. He did not trust this new partner of his, and planned on stabbing him in the back the moment he took his item. And the other, he had spent his life in a dark place of his own, far away from the contact of all except his family. His experiences had also taught him to be weary of whom he chose to work with. He decided to partner with the thief, but he always kept one eye on him.

But things didn't stay that way.

No, they didn't. They were both too similar.

They couldn't help it. There was something there.

Something between them that neither knew how to put a name to.

And neither of them knew how to stop it.

But I don't think either really wanted to. At first they did, but it grew and grew, and they began to grow accustomed to it. The thief could not understand humans and did not know how to act like them, but he could understand this human. And the young man didn't care that the thief was more creature than human, because he thought the same about himself. I think they saw something in one another and wanted to explore it.

And they did. They didn't stop it.

They didn't want to. When they became comfortable with it, they found that they wanted it.

Did they.

The thief did.

I think he did too. The item holder. He was every bit as interested in the thief as the thief was in him.

Ahh, you're telling the story now, are you? Well, what happened next?

Well it ends as all stories end. They fell in love.

Who said it was the ending? I thought it was just the beginning. They had a mission, didn't they? One they would do together.

Yes, one that we'll do together.

00000

_One that we'll do together…_

Marik marked the exact moment he woke up from his dream by when the memory ceased to be a pleasant one, and instead reminded him of the giant hole left in his life. They hadn't done anything together. The only thing they'd accomplished was to lose. Their story hadn't had a happy ending after all.

He wanted to tell himself that it would, but today he just couldn't muster up the energy to keep on lying to himself.

The past two weeks had been hard. He wanted to hate Rishid for what he'd said that day, but he couldn't bring himself to. He couldn't bring himself to do anything but lay in his bed, the same thing he'd been doing for the past four days. His siblings were happy that he wasn't torturing himself by continuing his search anymore, but his listless behavior bothered them even more. He couldn't help it. He felt like he'd lost everything.

There had always been the small hope, after everything had happened and the Pharaoh had gone, that maybe he could do something. Maybe he could make everything better. Maybe he could bring the spirit of the Sennen Ring back. After all, if the Items themselves still existed, didn't it mean that some fragment of the thief who lived inside them had to as well? He couldn't get to the items themselves, but there had to be a way, some ritual that would allow him to bring the man back. That had been his thought, all this time.

He thought he had realized only a few months into his quest that it was destined to fail. He'd gone for the most reliable sources first, and there had been nothing. But he'd kept going. He told himself that it was a small setback, and it would have been foolish to give up without trying everything. So he tried and tried and searched and it was always the same. There were no answers. What he wanted to do was impossible.

But Marik never stopped. Stopping would be admitting his defeat, stopping would be giving up. Stopping would make him think, and he desperately did not want to do that. He didn't want to think on all the times he had spent with the spirit in the way that old people reminisced about lost loves. He didn't want to do any of that. He didn't want to let those memories and the person in them go. He wouldn't.

"But I have to. There's no other choice. There's no answer. There's no happy ending, do you see that? I can't do it."

He couldn't do it. It was impossible. The dead stayed dead, and the one he yearned for was just catching up to what his body had been doing for thousands of years.

"I tried… but I can't."

It was really just stupid to keep on pretending like if he tried hard enough, he would be rewarded for his efforts. Nothing would ever happen. Nothing would make him live again.

"We don't get a happy ended, Bakura."

* * *

><p>So the story behind this chapter was Devon sitting at her computer and thinking "Oh, I want to try something different!" And that worked pretty well and all, but then it all got mussed up. I wanted the sections with Marik to be absent of emotion (and they were), but then towards the end, I wanted them to have a lot of emotion. And they kind of didn't. Like, they kind of did, but I couldn't get into the mood, so it's like this potential that really wants to go somewhere, but then it kind of peters out. Also I feel like my endings really are getting worse and worse. You'd think by now I'd have gotten the hang of it, but nope. Aaaand I think it's becoming harder and harder to see how the song lyric fits in with the chapter. I swear, there is a reason for all of it! However, I fear that reason will become more vague with future chapters I may write... But we'll see!<p>

In other words, how do you guys feel about some Citronshipping? Because that might happen. It's one of the chapters I alluded to in the above paragraph, with the lyric that barely fits. For some reason, I'm not all that into Citronshipping. I mean, it's basically the same as Thief, but I dunno, I'd pick Thief any day. It might be because I've never watched the season with Thief King Bakura. But at any rate, I'm considering it!

Okay, so like always, please remember to review! And thank you!


	25. Today Is Friday, Friday Partyin

It like just turned midnight and I feel like a loser for putting this up so soon, but I'm bored. I'm alternating between doing nothing and finishing up a Thiefshipping oneshot I wanna get online either today or tomorrow. It will be titled _Three_ (hint hint check it out hint). But at the moment, this chapter takes precedence. Interesting fact, this chapter was originally supposed to come out a little bit before Christmas, if I had followed my updating schedule correctly. Nothing like being seven months late! ...I wish I knew how to keep deadlines... And on a completely different note, this chapter is happy again! And there's some Thiefshipping and Deathshipping in it.

**Disclaimer:** Still not the owner of Yu-Gi-Oh. Or "Friday". But that last one is okay.

* * *

><p>Chapter Twenty-Five: Today I-is Friday, Friday (Partyin')<p>

Today was the big fucking day, all right. Second Friday of the month of December, and there had been a blizzard the night before. Just in time for Domino's annual snowball fight.

Bakura burst out of his room the moment he had put on clothes he deemed reasonably clean and banged loudly on the door to his brother's room. He heard the crash of his brother fall out of bed as the sound woke him. This was the one day he would always wake up before Ryou. Every other day it was his older brother that woke him up, constantly telling him that he needed to get ready for school, tuck in his shirt, his jacket wasn't buttoned correctly, oh no he spilled juice on his shirt, blah blah blah, who cared about any of that shit? _This_ was what mattered, and Ryou had better get his ass out of that damn bed or he'd leave him.

"I'm coming, please stop banging like that, you'll wake up mum and dad!" Ryou called, _finally_ making his way to the door and opening it.

"They sleep through anything!" Bakura scowled, darting into his brother's room to jump on the mostly-made bed and mess it up, to his brother's chagrin and his enjoyment.

"Come _on_ already, you're not even dressed! Get your ass up and start moving! We've gotta get there before everyone else so we can scope out the arena and get our supplies ready!" Bakura yelled. Wasn't _any_ of this obvious to Ryou yet? They'd been doing this for _how many_ years now, and he _still_ didn't know how the procedure went?

"Bakura please, calm down a bit! Before we go running off, I've got to get dressed, we've got to eat, we should really let mum and dad know where we're going to be, oh, I still need to fix my bed…"

"Well hurry it up then! Get clothes on already, jeez! What are you waiting for?"

"Well I'm not going to change with you in the room," Ryou muttered, pale face lighting up with red. Bakura rolled his eyes and jumped off the bed.

"Prude," he called out to his brother. "If you want something to eat, then get downstairs fast! Forget about the bed, the parents will fix it! If you don't show up, I'll leave without you!" He raced out of the room before Ryou was able to open his mouth again and blab some more useless junk.

Downstairs in the kitchen, he quickly popped some toast into the toaster. He could have made something better, but he didn't have time to waste. He needed to get to the park fast. This year was going to be _his_ year. Nothing was going to change that. He'd trained for this all year, throwing around an old tennis ball to increase his aim and his throwing arm. Ryou had sported several bruises on his arm that would attest to his strength, at least until the parents had told him to cut it out, and he'd had to go back to throwing the ball at the tree out back.

Ryou made it down right as Bakura was finishing his first piece of toast. He slid the plate with the bread he'd prepared over to his brother, and then sent the jam on its way as well.

"Bakura, you know mum doesn't like it when you slide things on the table like that! It leaves scratches!" Ryou fretted.

"Just eat the damn bread already, and be glad I even made you any!" the younger of the two snapped. He hardly ever made food for himself, much less for anyone else, but today was special. Today, both he and Ryou needed their strength if he wanted to win this. And oh, he was going to win this.

The moment Ryou had closed his mouth around his last bite of toast, Bakura was dashing out of the kitchen, grabbing their winter things from the closet and throwing them on the floor at Ryou's feet when he came into the living room. While he'd been waiting for his brother to hurry up, Bakura had already yanked his boots on and was strapping them up. Ryou rolled his eyes at his brother's anxious behavior, but thank god didn't open his mouth up _again_. Instead, they dressed quickly and quietly, and Bakura rushed them both out the door the second they were done.

The cold weather hit him the instant he walked outside, and he grinned. This was perfect. The snow was deep and lie undisturbed on the front lawn. Bakura raced down to the street and burst out laughing as Ryou tried to do the same and wound up tripped and falling into a snowdrift.

"You're supposed to wait until after the fight starts to fall, Ry!" Bakura grinned.

"Yes, well, it's very high!" his brother protested, face burning as he too joined his brother on the street, walking in an exaggerated fashion to not fall over again. Which just made him look more like a loser than he already did with snow clinging to his pants and jacket.

Luckily enough for Ryou, he had no further accidents as they made their way to the park. There were a few kids milling around, some getting started on building forts and such for the upcoming fight. But for the most part, the place was theirs. Bakura grinned like a maniac.

"All right Ryou, you know what to do, right?" he demanded. His brother sighed and nodded. "Then get scoping out all the good areas by the river and I'll start over on this side!" Ryou nodded again and then walked off, still in that stilted fashion of his as he tried not to fall again. Bakura didn't bother being careful. He wasn't a loser like his brother; he _knew_ he wasn't going to fall.

A few kids by a fort watched him as he ran past, and he smirked at them as he went. They were obviously new to this. Forts were only useful if you were planning on staying in one area, and _no one_ did that. The ones who holed themselves up were always the first to get out. This was a game of planning and skill, and you needed to be fast on your feet.

Bakura and Ryou had been participants in this snowball fight since he'd been seven, and he'd learned a lot since then. He knew all the good spots to hide, and where the most battle-heavy areas were. Most of the work would be done when the game actually started, but for now it was good to get a lay of the land and prepare some snowballs in various hidden caches for later use. He was going to win this year. He'd been close to taking it all last year, but one team had beaten him and Ryou out. It had all been Ryou's fault.

With preparations done, he rushed back to the center of the park where the fight would officially begin. As he'd been going to different hiding spots, more and more kids had begun showing up, forcing Bakura to be sneakier as he went around the park. It wasn't against the rules to give yourself a head start before the game began, but he didn't want anyone else knowing what he was doing.

Ryou was already there by the time Bakura got back. So were most of the neighborhood kids, children he recognized from school and ones he hung around with. There were several minutes left before the fight officially got under way. Anyone who had not arrived by then and gotten his or her team set up would be disqualified.

"Have you seen them yet?" Bakura hissed to his brother, looking around at the competition.

"No. Maybe they aren't here," Ryou suggested. Bakura laughed. There was no way _those two_ wouldn't be here. They had been last year's winning team, and like him and Ryou, had gotten close to winning the past two earlier years. They wouldn't miss this. And though they had beaten him before, Bakura didn't want them to miss this. Winning wouldn't be anywhere _near_ as much fun if he didn't squash those two in the process.

"All right everyone, it's time to start! Get into your teams and write down the name of you and your partner! Once we've got everyone registered, the game will begin!" Cheers went up from the crowd of kids gathered in the park. Bakura grabbed Ryou and went to the closest spot he could find to sign up. He looked at the names of the kids who'd gotten there before him, recognizing a lot of them, but none of them being the two he was looking for specifically.

"They better show up," he growled to himself. The game would begin soon. Officials were explaining the rules to those who were new while the last few fighters signed up. He still didn't see the team he was looking for.

"There you two are! The albino freak team!"

Bakura spun around, eyes narrowing when he beheld the two boys in front of him. Dressed just as heavily as he was, grinning and with faces slightly tinged from the cold, were the Ishtar brothers.

"Hmph. You two almost didn't make it," Bakura scowled.

"Aww, were you worried we wouldn't be here to beat you, little baby?" the eldest brother, Malik cooed at him. Bakura grit his teeth.

"No!" he yelled. "I just wanted you to be here to watch me win!"

"Like that will ever happen! Little babies like you can't do anything!" the younger of the two brothers, Marik, laughed. Bakura's face burned brightly and he took a threatening step toward the two. A hand on his arm held him back.

"Bakura, calm down, we can't get into a fight here!" Ryou advised him from before.

"Yeah, listen to your older brother, little baby," Marik said. Bakura wrenched Ryou's hand off his arm.

"Don't touch me," he said lowly. "And you two! Laugh all you want! You'll be crying when I beat you into the ground!" Then he stomped away, leaving his brother and the Ishtar boys laughing behind.

He _hated_ those two! They weren't _that much_ older than him, but every single time he saw them, they _always_ started with that baby business! He wasn't a baby! He was two years younger than Malik, and only one younger than Marik. That didn't make him a baby! He would have shown them, but fighting, unless it was with snowballs, wasn't allowed. He couldn't do anything to them until the match started. Then he would show them.

"Bakura, will you please stop! The match is going to start soon, and we don't want to be separated!" Ryou called from behind him. His brother was trying to catch up with him, and failing. Bakura stopped and rolled his eyes, then turned to face his brother.

"Why don't you ever tell them to stop?" he questioned. "Why don't you ever stick up for me?"

"It's not good to get into fights, Bakura," Ryou explained slowly, like he was a little kid. He sounded like the parents did whenever _they_ were trying to explain something to him. Ryou was older than him, but he hadn't ever called him a baby like the Ishtar brothers did. But he didn't need to. It was all in that _attitude_ of his, and it was bothering Bakura more now than ever.

"God, Ryou, can you just stop already? You aren't an adult, okay! You're a kid, so stop complaining and bitching all day and just act like one!" he yelled. Ryou drew himself up to his full height, which was about an inch or two taller than Bakura.

"Well actually," he started, "I'm _not_ a kid. I'm a _teenager_ now."

"You're thirteen and only a year older than me! Stop acting so high and mighty!" Bakura snapped.

"I'm not! I'm just trying to get you to calm down so you don't do anything too rash!" Ryou argued. His own voice was rising as well, and kids around them were starting to stop and look.

"I'll show you rash," Bakura growled, walking up to his brother.

"Hey, the match is gonna start!" A kid ran past the two of them and anyone else who was standing by watching the two brothers. Bakura raised his head and looked to the center of the park where everyone had gathered. Then he turned his attention back to his brother.

"Don't mess this up, Ryou. We're going to win this time," he said. He was still angry, but Ryou was his partner now, and it was important that the two of them stayed together. He would show his anger to all of his opponents.

"You be careful too," Ryou said with a bit of a smile. "If you want to win, you're going to have to keep an eye out for those Ishtar brothers."

"They won't be a problem," Bakura grinned. Back in the center, he heard the alarm go off that meant the match had began. They now had three hours to win the match.

"Let's go! Head to the river!" he yelled to Ryou. Ryou nodded and they took off together and began running. Bakura scooped up a handful of snow and formed it into a tight ball, ready for anyone who looked his way.

Back in the center, things had exploded. It was mayhem. Kids were pelting each other left and right with snowballs. Teams were falling like flies. All it took was three snowballs to the chest, and you were out. Then it was left to your partner, and if he got out too, then the team had lost. There were officials all throughout the park, watching to make sure that no one cheated and acted like they weren't out, though each year there were only a few counts of it. Cheating carried the penalty of not being able to participate in the game ever again. No one with a brain dared to think they were smart enough to get away with it.

He and Ryou slid down past the dead bushes that lined the river to the first of their hidden defense positions and grabbed a handful of snowballs each. The river was a prime location to destroy some of the other teens. Each year kids ran to the river to find hideout in the bushes and trees that lined it, and each year a lot of them got out. The ones that remained would find different areas to hide, but he and Ryou had their other hideouts for that point of the game. Right now they were focused on the river.

Bakura threw one of his snowballs at the first kid he saw come into view. It hit him dead in the chest, and he spun around wildly, looking for where it had come from. Bakura grinned. This was too easy. This kid was obviously a newbie. He didn't even have his partner with him! Only the new guys thought it would be a good idea to split up and conquer. In some instances it was a good strategy, but most of the time it just got rid of the guy who watched your back.

He threw a second snowball, and Ryou threw the third. All of them hit the kid directly. He was out before he even knew it. He looked down at his chest, counted the impacts, and then lowered his head and sulked away back to the center where the losers went to wait for time to run out.

"One out," Bakura cheered.

"And a million more to go," Ryou finished. Bakura rolled his eyes.

"What, you already scared?" he taunted.

"No. Just reminding you not to celebrate too early," Ryou said.

"You think I'm an idiot or something? I _know_ that we haven't won _yet_," Bakura said.

"Got another team coming," Ryou stated. They ended all conversation and concentrated on eliminating these two as well. Which they did, no problem. Bakura was a pro at this. Ryou was, well, he was just pansy, pathetic little Ryou who hated hurting others and violence, but he was at least worth something. He had good aim, and he had a competitive streak that shone in games like this. He wanted to win as much as Bakura did.

With the river area mostly cleared out (those who had not fallen in battle had realized it might be in their best interests to clear out), Bakura and Ryou cautiously emerged from their sixth hideout along the river's banks.

"Okay, time to head to the other side. Keep your eyes peeled for any stragglers," Bakura instructed. Ryou nodded and held up his two snowballs. He had a couple others stuffed in the hood of his coat.

"The two of you aren't going anywhere yet!"

Bakura seemed to spin around in slow motion. His eyes widened and he screamed for Ryou to run as he caught sight of the two Ishtar brothers running towards them, holding snowballs in each hand, laughing manically. It was too late. The snowballs flew, one after another. One smacked Bakura in the chest. Another two hit Ryou, making the boy stumble and drop one of his own snowballs.

Bakura threw his weapons, not concentrating on aiming at the two approaching enemies so much as just trying to scare them off. His eyes darted across the environment. They were too far away from the river to run back to the protection it offered now, and by the time they got to where they were headed, it would already be too late. They had to drive the Ishtars back now. This was no spot for a fight! He'd had everything planned out in his head, and now those two brats had ruined it! This wasn't where he'd planned on crushing them!

"The baby hit me! He actually hit me!" Malik's voice came across the stretch of snow, sounding incredulous. Then he gasped as a second snowball of Ryou's hit him square in the chest and knocked the wind out of him. Bakura dodged a snowball aimed his way that could have only come from Marik. He turned briefly to see the blonde glaring at him and getting ready to throw a second snowball in revenge. Bakura threw one of his own, turned, and kept running.

"Bakura!" That was Ryou, the idiot! He'd stopped running and was pointing. Bakura ran to him and got ready to grab him by his arm and drag him away if he needed to. They couldn't stop for whatever stupid thing had caught his attention!

"Wait, Bakura, look! It's Malik!"

He spared a glance behind him for a second and stopped running so quickly he almost tripped as his body realized it had come to a stop. Malik was looking down at his chest, which was covered in snow. Malik had also stopped at staring at his brother with the same look of wide-eyed disbelief.

"He got me out," Malik said. His voice sounded small and tiny compared to the way he usually yelled everything. "The baby actually got me out. That can't be possible."

"You're right, that's impossible," Marik frowned. "Are you sure you counted right?"

"He got me out," Malik responded. He looked up at where Bakura and Ryou were standing wearily together, ready to bolt at any moment. "You got me out!"

Bakura smirked tiredly. He was still ready for action, and this whole standing and waiting for what would happen next was both tense and draining. "Told you I'd destroy you both."

"But that's not possible! You're just a baby! You _can't_ beat me!" Malik protested.

"Well, it looks like he just did," Ryou informed with a bit of a grin. He squeezed Bakura's arm and Bakura didn't punch him for it. He was feeling pretty good about himself right now. He would tolerate the brotherly thing with Ryou for a while.

"I wouldn't get so happy if I were you," Marik said darkly, raising his hands. "You might have gotten Malik out, but you've still got to deal with me!"

It all happened too quickly. Bakura cursed himself for not having assumed it would. Marik clutched two snowballs tightly in his hands. He threw them both simultaneously. Bakura shouted at Ryou to run, but it was already too late. One of the snowballs had hit him. It was his third. His brother was out. The second Bakura barely had time to dodge. He glanced behind him at Ryou, who was falling too his knees in the snow, hands outstretched, and to Marik, who was coming his way with another snowball.

"Run!" Ryou yelled to him. "Run, Bakura! You can't lose here! You have to win! For the both of us!"

"I will!" Bakura shouted back, and then he ran. He tore across the snowy field to the closest hideout he could think of. Marik followed close behind him, but the distance was widening some. Right now he didn't care if that hideout was nowhere near the battle; he just needed to get away from Marik. And if he couldn't, then he needed to get ammunition.

He spotted one of his hideouts. This was one he had prepared himself; he knew exactly what was in there and where it was. It was located just under a bare tree. Nothing about it stood out, which was why it was perfect. The tree was located on a bank, and on the south side the roots were exposed, leaving a perfect little niche for some snowballs. Bakura glanced behind him, saw Marik was still following, and ran faster.

He dashed to the side of the tree where he'd hidden his missiles and grabbed as many as he could. One dropped as he got to his feet, then a second. He managed to scoop the second back up, but there was no time for the first. Marik was already here, looking angry.

Marik threw the first hit. It missed, and Bakura exchanged a blow of his own. He smiled grimly when it hit. Marik scowled and threw another, which also missed.

"What's wrong, Marik? Your aim not as good as the 'baby's'?" he taunted.

"I'm just warming up," Marik growled. But his third snowball missed as well, and he only had one more left in his hands. Bakura readied one of his own, and Marik turned and bolted. He threw the last snowball behind him for good measure, but his aim was off, and the action gave him a few seconds head start. Bakura grinned savagely and chased after him. Now _he_ was the hunter, and Marik was his prey. And he was going to win. Once he got Marik out, no one would be able to stop him. He still had two more hits left, and he couldn't imagine that there would be anyone out of the remaining teams able to take him on, even without Ryou. He was the best. He wasn't some baby! And he was going to show it now!

Marik came to an abrupt stop. Bakura stopped a bit in front of him, grin still in place. Until he noticed the reason why Marik had stopped, and then it fell, just a little. Another boy was coming toward them, walking slowly, snowballs in hand, smiling. He was trying to look cool and failing. Bakura rolled his eyes. Just another annoyance for him to deal with before he could claim his victory.

And then the others came out, and the annoyance was a bit bigger than Bakura had initially assumed it to be. There were suddenly a dozen or so kids surrounding the two of them, each holding at least two snowballs. This was suddenly not a coincidental meeting with another team, but an ambush. And he only had two more hits left before he was out of the game.

"Looks like we got ourselves another team to annihilate, boys!" the first boy cheered.

"And girls!" a call came up from the left, followed by the hoots of two more girls who apparently didn't want to be ignored.

"And girls," the boy added, rolling his eyes. Then he grinned again. "You two ready to eat snow?"

No, he was not ready to eat snow, Bakura wanted to say. He was going to win this, no matter what damage these punks thought they'd be able to do. But the boy's words gave him an idea. He didn't want to, but he moved slowly until he had sided up to Marik.

"Temporary truce," he suggested. The other boy looked down at him.

"What, don't think you can beat them all by yourself, baby?" Marik sneered. Bakura bristled, but controlled his anger. He knew he could take them all himself. But he wasn't going to be stupid about this. Ryou was already out, and he only had two more hits left before he lost as well. He wasn't concerned about any of these losers, but it would be difficult to pay attention both to the ambushers and Marik. Marik was the one out of any of the people here who could get him out. And he wasn't going to lose to Marik.

"I can beat them by myself," he said. "I just thought you might want the reassurance of knowing you wouldn't be losing to just anyone. I've got the honor of beating you, and no one else. So what do you say?"

"I say if you stab me in the back, I'll kill you," Marik growled. Bakura grinned.

"Same goes for you!"

Marik had enough time to grab a handful of snow before all hell broke lose. Bakura darted quickly out of the center of fire. Everyone had thrown his or her snowballs at once, not a very smart move. He heard one of the ambushers complain to another that his ball had hit them. Bakura took one of them out himself on his first throw. Apparently the boy had already gained two hits. Bakura gave him his third, and that left him down and out for the count.

He caught sight of Marik bending and scooping up some more snow. The blonde was at a disadvantage. He barely had time to form his weapons while he was still trying to dodge the incoming missiles. Bakura darted to his hideout and grabbed several from his stash, stuffing what he couldn't carry into the hood of his coat.

"Hey Marik!" he called. "Catch!" He threw two snowballs up into the air, and the blonde caught them, then looked at Bakura for a split second. There was confusion on his face, and Bakura felt accomplished for being the one to put it there. Now the asshole owed him, and they both knew it. Then in another moment Marik's attention was torn away from him as he snarled ferociously and attacked one of the three girls in the ambush.

Bakura scooped up some more snowballs when his current supply ran out, and continued going on with business. There were only four kids left, and the majority of the ones that had gotten out were standing around the sidelines, cheering for their teammates to win. Which wouldn't be happening. The blood was roaring in his ears and he'd built up a steady heat that was warming his whole body and freeing his muscles from the cold that had descended on them earlier. He couldn't lose. Bakura was in his game.

So was Marik. From the little he had caught, the blonde was doing good. Much like Bakura, he took no prisoners in this match. Now that there were fewer opponents to worry about, he had time to make his own snowballs as well.

Bakura was just thinking that he actually made a pretty good team with one half of his rival team when the snowball hit him in his side. He gasped, eyes wide. He turned and saw a snowball fly at the boy who'd hit him with such force it knocked him over onto his butt. At the other end of that snowball was Marik. The blonde breathed heavily and looked positively livid. For a moment, Bakura was almost afraid, before he remembered that that was stupid and he was better than everyone here.

"What number was that?" Marik called out, turning his gaze on to Bakura himself.

"Number two!" Bakura replied. He threw the snowball clenched tightly in his hand and took out the bastard who'd hit him. Then he checked on Marik, who'd just gotten out another boy himself. That was when he noticed the other boy, the one who'd first cornered them, sneaking up on Marik with a snowball between his hands.

"Look out!" he yelled before he was even able to tell himself that this was _Marik_, and he should not care as much as he did. Marik turned too slowly. The ball hit him dead center in his chest and knocked him over. Bakura ran to his side and bent to help him up, glaring at the three boys who were again surrounding them, daring them to even think about attacking.

Marik grasped his hand and allowed the acceptance. He crouched low to the ground, eyes darting to the three boys, ready to run if he noticed any of them getting ready to throw.

"You were out," Bakura growled at the leader. The boy smirked.

"You only thought I was! I've only been hit twice!"

"That's cheating!" Marik shouted.

"No it's not," the boy argued, shrugging, a movement that was supposed to indicate that the two of them knew nothing. Bakura was starting to feel that familiar rage that burned at him whenever someone called him a baby.

"It's against the rules to act like you haven't been gotten out yet when you really have. There's nothing in the rulebook about doing the opposite. That's just called strategy." The other two boys in the circle sniggered. "You two might be dumb, but you're also pretty good, I'll give you that. Maybe next year you'd want to join us."

"I don't think so," Bakura said. "I don't think you guys would want to join me next year. You'll be too upset over the fact that I beat you all. Because I'm going to win this!" Before anyone could react, he grabbed the last snowball out of his hood and threw it at the leader. He fell to his knees with his eyes wide. Marik threw a ball he'd made when he'd fallen to the ground and got a second boy out. Bakura took out the last and laughed as they all went running.

"That's right! Head toward the losers where you belong! That's what you get for messing with us!" He laughed and laughed and realized his mistake only when Marik's eyes went from mirthful over their victory to dark and stormy. They were not a team. Even if they were good together. They were enemies.

He jumped away from the blonde and hurriedly grabbed at some snow and formed it into a ball. Across from him, Marik was doing the same.

"You fought pretty well, for a baby," Marik taunted.

"And you fought well for a pansy!" Bakura threw back. Marik's grin became a frown. His fingers drummed against the snow in his hand, but he didn't throw it. He was hesitating. Bakura mirrored his expression. His own weapon was cold as it melted beneath his gloved fingers, reminding him that it was now or never. This was as good a chance he would ever get to ruin Marik right here and now. He didn't hesitate. He threw the snowball and watched as it cost Marik his victory.

The blonde scoffed and wiped the snow off his coat. "I didn't think you'd actually do that," he mumbled. Bakura walked up to him and shrugged.

"Told you I was gonna win," he said. "I can't believe you didn't do it yourself." Marik shrugged and let the snowball drop.

"What can I say?" he said. "You did pretty well, Bakura. I kinda want to see if you've got the skill to actually win this thing on your own."

Bakura grinned and picked up Marik's fallen snowball. Feeling silly while doing it, he gave the blonde a wink and darted off. "I'll see you at the center when I win!" he called back. Marik's laugh rang in his ears as he went.

00000

After he won, Bakura did find himself with Ryou in the center of the park where the two of them were crowned the victors of this year's snowball match. Most of the kids around them cheered, but a few—such as the kids of the ambush who glared sulkily up at the two brothers—chose to boo instead and go on about how _they_ should have won. Bakura didn't give a crap one way or the other. He was the winner here, and he'd won using his own skills.

"We did it! We won!" Ryou cheered once the crowd had begun to clear up. Now that everyone knew who had one (and who to aim to beat next year), most of the kids were headed home, or fooling around some more in the park. Ryou yanked his arms up and down as the two of them walked further and further away from the center. Bakura let him do it.

"You mean _I_ won," Bakura corrected. "_You_ got out. _I_ had to do all of the hard work."

"But you had help."

Bakura stopped walking, and Ryou stopped saying whatever nonsense he'd been about to say. The two brothers looked back as one and saw the Ishtar brothers standing behind them, grins on their faces. Ryou broke out into a smile and rushed over to Malik's side.

"Hi Malik!" he greeted cheerfully. Bakura started at the two in amazement. He went back from his brother to Malik, and back again. Ryou was still smiling, and Malik was grinning in a way that almost looked happy. What the hell was going on here?

"Ryou, what are you doing?" he demanded. "That's the enemy!"

"Malik and I got to know each other when we were waiting!" Ryou explained cheerily. "He's actually a really nice person! We've decided to hang out later this week!" Bakura protested loudly to the idea of such nonsense.

"Well _you_ got to know my brother too, didn't you?" Malik questioned. Something about the way he asked it made Bakura blush deeply. It was like he was implying something _more_ had happened, whatever _that_ might be. When he looked over at Marik, he noticed he was blushing too.

"We just helped each other out a bit, that's all!" Marik protested hotly. A bit too hotly. Even Bakura picked up on that.

"_Suuure!_" Malik laughed. "From what I hear, the two of you worked well together! Maybe next year you two should be a team against little Ryou and I!" To prove his point, he grabbed Ryou and squished him up against his side. Ryou squeaked and Bakura squawked loudly. He did _not_ like this, oh no he did not.

"Let go of him!"

"No, he doesn't mind, do you Ryou?"

"N-not really," Ryou responded timidly. He was still smiling though, and that angered Bakura more than anything. Bakura ran up to Malik and started pulling on his arm to release his brother, but the older boy just pushed him off on to Marik, who caught him in surprise. Their eyes met and they darted away from each other as quickly as they could. Malik's laughing rang in the background. Bakura ran up to yell at him once more, and this time Marik joined him, although neither of them looked at each other.

While his mind was mostly on the fight and _getting Malik the hell away from his brother!_ somewhere in the back of his mind the idea of teaming with Marik stuck. They had made a good team, after all. Maybe he'd think about that for next year after all.

* * *

><p>Yay snowball fight! On that note, let's pretend that there's snow in Japan. Yeah. A lot of snow.<p>

I really enjoyed writing this chapter, it was fun! Making Bakura be the youngest, and (though this could be argued) in a way the most immature out of the lot was interesting to write. It made me enjoy him a lot, haha XD Also some of the scenes I kept picturing in my head as like, really melodramatic scenes from action movies or something, like the bit where Ryou got out. His face is drawn in something akin to pain and guilt at both being the first of them to go down and the knowledge that he is no longer there to support his brother. But he will do what he can. He throws his arm out on his way to the ground, screams at Bakura to run, who is staring at him with wide, surprised brown eyes, having not expected such an outcome for an instant. He turns and bolts after shouting some heartwarming words of continuing the fight, not just for him but for the both of them, for the brother that he has lost! and Ryou closes his eyes and rests with a smile on his face, knowing that everything will turn out all right. Yeah, just like that. But with slow-motion. And dramatic music. And some real long close-ups that reek of emotion.

So yeah, remember to review! Thanks!


	26. We We We So Excited

By Italy standards, this chapter is late. However, in America it is not, so oh well, I'm changing the rules on everyone again and creating loopholes. My excuse is that I randomly spent the day in Pisa. I have all the nerdy tourist-y pictures of me holding up the leaning tower to prove it. It was pretty cool. Unfortunately, after you've seen the Duomo and the Leaning Tower you kind of realize wow, Pisa kind of sucks, so let's go hop on a train back to Florence! I'm kind of getting tired of Florence too though. I've been here for like five weeks. I've been in Italy/Sicily for like pretty much three months. I'm about ready to go home, which I will be in a week! Yaay! So enough about my life now.

I realized I had no idea what in the hell I was doing for this chapter, so I just started randomly writing, and this happened. It's not the best chapter, but I'm satisfied with it. It's one of those rare hybrid canon-AU type things. Also it hasn't been edited very well. I drank too much wine at dinner and it made me super tired, plus I have to wake up in like six hours, once I actually go to bed. So it'll get looked over again tomorrow or something. For now, as always, just tell me if you notice any horribly glaring mistakes I should have seen myself.

ALSO FANFICTION WHY DO YOU APPARENTLY NOT ALLOW ME TO PUT DASHES IN MY CHAPTER TITLES ANYMORE? DASHES ARE AN IMPORTANT PART OF MY WRITING STYLE AND I AM SO DISAPPOINTED RIGHT NOW! Seriously! How do dashes hurt anyone?!

**EDIT 8-5-12:** There were hardly any mistakes in this at all. I was all worried about uploading yet another terrible un-beta'd chapter, and I found like... four. But at any rate everything should be perfect now.

**Disclaimer:** I still do not own Yu-Gi-Oh. Or the song "Friday." Nope.

* * *

><p>Chapter Twenty-Six: We-We-We So Excited<p>

The most exciting thing that ever happens is the start of a new day. A new day brings new possibilities and new opportunities to do something interesting or unexpected. When you are the ruler of the world, nothing is ever new. Nothing is ever exciting. It's difficult to get up in the morning sometimes.

This morning, Bakura knew there would be an attempt on his life. His assassin was an up-and-coming rebel he'd been keeping an eye on for some time. His story wasn't any different from any other. Bakura's cruel rule and absolute order had broken his father some time ago and left the old man with no other choice but to take his own life. That decision had led the mother and three other children down a path of poverty, starvation, backbreaking labor, and no hope. About the same as any other family living in the dark shadow of their ruler. The rebel kid had seen all of this and grown up deciding he would _do something about it_. He would _change it_. He would kill the man responsible for all the pain and suffering in the world. It was a valiant decision, but one that was destined to fail like all others before it, even if this kid was the most likely to succeed out of all that lot. Not that it helped him any in the long run.

Bakura took his throne that morning. He sighed, pretended like he was doing work, and waited for the time when the assassination attempt would occur. He already knew how it would end (with angry tears and screams of revenge and how he shouldn't get too comfortable, because one day, someone would come and _end his tyrannous rule!_)_,_ but it would at least give him a small bump of difference in the otherwise dull monotony of everyday life to look forward to.

The rebel broke into the palace in the usual fashion of people born from his mold; guns a-blaze, screams, the spatter of blood as some of Bakura's less-trained guards were taken down, and then the victory cries of other rebels as the rest were herded to the corners of the room and subdued. Bakura sighed. It stopped giving him the thrill assassination usually led to when it all blurred into the same thing.

The leader of the not-so rag-tag group approached his throne, shouted some words at him that might have been meaningful had he cared or even paid attention. Bakura sighed and shifted in his seat. The rebel screamed and yelled some more. Bakura checked the watch he was not wearing. The rebel leader took out his gun and pointed it at Bakura and a hidden guard dropped down from the ceiling of the huge throne room and slid a knife across the man's throat. The guards in the corner of the room took advantage of the surprise of the rebel faction and overpowered them easily. Bakura yawned.

Once his guards had rounded up the resisting rebels, Bakura waved them off. They would be put into the dungeons and subjected to merciless torture and questioning. Some would be killed. Most would be turned into slaves and forced to work for the rest of their lives. Which wouldn't be long, as most of the men assigned to work for him usually died within the first year from the terrible conditions they were subjected to. All very boring and mundane stuff.

"Chalk up another win for the bad guys!"

The black-clad figure in the center of the room, the only one Bakura hadn't told to leave, took off his mask. Bakura watched as gold hair and tanned skin were revealed to him, and violet eyes shone with mirth and adrenaline from the murder the man had just committed. Bakura never grew _bored_ of witnessing the ethereal beauty that Marik possessed, but even that illustrious shine dulled a bit after so many days.

"You're not still keeping score, are you?" Bakura drawled from his throne. He shifted in his seat again, rested his chin against a fist. His eyes never left Marik's frame. The male looked good in practically everything, but he looked _stunning_ clad solely in black as he was now. Sometimes to rid himself of the constant boredom that hung over him, Bakura tried to guess whether Marik wore outfits like that on purpose, or if all the teasing was merely accidental. He was never completely sure what the blonde was thinking, one of the many reasons he had kept him around after he has assumed control over the world. The fact that he had a nice ass didn't hinder that decision any.

"Of course I am! It's not every day I foil an assassination attempt!" Marik said. Bakura quirked an eyebrow and Marik changed his stance with a huff. "Okay, so it happens a lot. But it's still fun to keep track. They only scored that once, you know."

The one time _they_ had scored was about two years ago. Several rebel leaders had combined their efforts and their plans and managed to convince one of Bakura's own guards to join their cause. Then, over the course of a year, they had snuck several of their forces into the palace. When they had deemed they had enough force on the inside, they had attacked. Bakura had remained in their custody for about two hours before Marik and several of his _own_ guards had found him, and then he and Marik had beat them all to a pulp, with some assistance from the help Marik had brought with him. The attack had not only failed, but from it Bakura had taken just a bit more consideration with whom he accepted into his palace. Needless to say, such a plan hadn't ever happened again.

"I almost wish the amount was higher," Bakura mused. Marik's eyes gained a certain gleam to them, and he sauntered up closer to the throne in a way that was almost indecent. Again Bakura found himself wondering if he even knew the way in which he was able to affect almost everyone with his looks and confidence. He hoped not. The idea that he was so easy to manipulate with just a look or two, while thrilling in its own regard, wasn't a pleasant one.

"Why? You have a death wish or something? Maybe I should just leave your safety to the confident hands of your other guards then, hmm?" Marik teased playfully. Bakura scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"Even with the Sennen Necklace telling them when the attack would happen, those idiots would still manage to mess it up somehow," he said, waving the question off with a weary gesture.

"So then you need me," Marik stated with a grin.

"I'll admit that you're a bit more useful than the rest of the buffoons here." _And more attractive_, he added silently in his mind.

"You _trust_ me," Marik all but sang. Bakura's eyes narrowed and he straightened his stance abruptly.

"_No_. I don't trust _anyone_," he hissed. "Trusting people gets them killed. I tolerate you because you are useful to me. I don't _need_ you. I am the most powerful person in the world. I have all seven Sennen Items and their abilities at my disposal. I literally rule over _everything_. Do _not_ mistake me for having such a weakness."

Marik's own eyes widened, and for a second he lost that sensual aura he carried about him as he took a step back in surprise from the intensity Bakura was expressing with his words. It was just as well. He had known Marik for years now, and worked with him for just as long. After he had defeated the Pharaoh and took control of everything, Marik had been the first to work with him to build the empire he now had complete control over. If he were capable of making them, Marik would have been something of a friend to him. That closeness, and the fact that Bakura had lusted over the blonde for just as long, made him just a tad more relaxed around the other male than he knew he should have been. But he was damned if he was going to let the person in question know that.

"I don't believe that," Marik said. He frowned and took a few steps closer. "I don't believe it when you say that you don't trust me."

"Well you should," Bakura huffed, sinking back down into his seat slightly. He watched Marik wearily as the blonde grew closer and closer to him. Several feet became a few, and then none at all. The other male was practically on top of him, and their closeness made Bakura's breath come imperceptibly quicker.

"If you didn't trust me," Marik started, whispering. The last thing Bakura wanted to do was to let the male know how much his presence affected him. But he couldn't stop himself from leaning in closer to hear those words. Marik was the one thing he had always wanted, but had never been able to have, even with all his power.

"Then why did you send all of your guards out of the room?" he continued. Bakura blinked, the paralysis hanging over his normally over-active mind clearing as he tried to process exactly what the hell Marik was saying here. He moved to pull away, put some distance between them, but before he could begin putting his muscles in action to complete the movement, there was a knife against his throat.

"You shouldn't have done that," Marik murmured softly. He was still just as close, leaning even closer now, enough so Bakura could feel the press of his legs as he climbed onto the throne with him. He felt soft. His words were soft. All of it was very startling juxtaposition to the hardness of the blade against him.

"Their absence only makes it that much easier to kill you," the blonde finished slowly. Bakura blinked again to clear his mind of the fog this closeness put over him. His mouth morphed into a deeper scowl than usual.

"You're going to kill me?" he drawled. It didn't make sense one way or another. Marik had no reason to kill him after all these years, but if it was a joke of some kind, he wasn't getting it, which irritated him all the more. He tried to not let it show. If this truly was an attempt on his life, he was going to treat it like all others and act as if he'd already known of it from the Sennen Necklace. Although the Necklace hadn't said anything at all about this in the itinerary for the day, a fact he was not quite pleased about.

"I am," Marik nodded. "I decided that a long time ago, really. Sorry Baku-kun, you're just too evil for your own good." He said the nickname so flippantly, but the grin he wore was every bit as hard as the knife.

"Care to elaborate?" Bakura questioned. Marik's grin widened a bit, and he moved ever so slightly. Despite the fact that he was literally centimeters from death, shivers ran down Bakura's body. Or maybe it was because he was centimeters from death, and this was still Marik on top of him, ranting and raving and crazed or not. He was every bit as attractive now as he'd been before he started this murder thing, and now he possessed that added dangerous aura. The boy was a devil.

"Didn't the Necklace show you all of this already?" he asked sweetly.

"I tend to forget some of the more boring aspects of my assassination attempts," Bakura said dryly. "After all, they all end the same."

"They do," Marik nodded, apparently thoughtful of the comment. "But this time you don't have me to come down and save you. Nor do you have the use of a single one from your guard force, useless though they may be."

"You think I can't save myself?" Bakura asked, quirking an eyebrow. Marik leaned in even closer. This situation was becoming dangerous due to his movements alone. Bakura's hands twitched at his side, and he marveled at the self-control he must possess to not grab the blonde and take out all of his frustrations that even dreams could not rid himself of. Marik was close enough now that he could feel his breath fanning against his face. The warmth coming off his body was entirely appealing.

"I think you haven't had the opportunity to in a long time. Skills are bound to get rusty, Baku-kun, and you won't have the chance to prove me wrong now," Marik whispered. His mouth was nearly against Bakura's ear. The overlord couldn't help it, he moved closer. Marik drew back just a bit, allowing some of the warmth between their bodies to escape, and pressed the blade of the knife closer to his neck. Bakura thought he felt the skin give a little, but even that did not calm the frantic beating of his heart. This was stupid. He should not be getting so damn excited over the boy's slightest touch!

"Enough banter," Marik stated. His voice had returned to its normal tone, the seductive air it had been taking in the last few moments gone altogether. "I've had enough of it to last me a lifetime, and pathetic as the majority of your guards are, a few of them are bound to come in here if we don't hurry this up."

"We're only waiting on you," Bakura said. He frowned when his voice came out deeper than he'd intended it to. Marik didn't seem to notice.

"All right. I admit, when you first defeated the Pharaoh, I was excited. Sure, I'd 'reformed' by then, but I'm sure you know it isn't any fun to be good," Marik started.

"Oh I know," Bakura agreed. Marik gave him a look, but the knife didn't move and neither did he. Bakura wasn't sure whether to be disappointed, or happy.

"I thought that you could actually do some good for this world, and that I could help. And it looked that way at first. But now, you're not any better than the Pharaoh you hated."

Bakura reacted to the words immediately, knife against his neck or not. The Pharaoh and all his friends had been gone for a while now, but he still could not stand any comparisons made between them, and Marik damn well knew it. He growled and lunged forward, cutting his own neck slightly on the steel. Marik moved backwards and then pushed him harshly back into the chair, blade held with renewed force against him.

"I'm not like him!" he hissed. "I'm not, and don't you _dare_ say that I am!"

"No, you're worse, aren't you?" Marik threw back at him. "I know he wasn't a good man, but he didn't cause nearly as much suffering as you do now."

"How would you know? You weren't alive back then, I was! I lived through all of it!" Bakura yelled back.

"Have you even seen the state of your kingdom? If the Pharaoh had treated the people back then the way you do now, there wouldn't have even _been_ an Egypt! Face it, Bakura, you're every bit as bad as he was and then some! People aren't constantly trying to kill you because it's some fucked up game they have fun with! They're trying to kill you so they can start something new and have families that don't have to worry about not having enough money, or a house, or food, or the very real fear that they could literally die any day for a number of reasons!" Marik shouted.

Bakura reared forward and nearly cut himself again. "You _knew_ I was evil! You _knew_ what my plan was this entire time! Don't try to say now that you didn't!"

"I didn't know it would be this bad!" Marik shouted back. He was livid with anger and looked ready to cast aside the knife and just strangle him with his bare hands. "I didn't think it would be like this! Do you really believe that I would have gone along with what you wanted if I had? I wanted the Pharaoh gone so families like mine didn't have to go through such pain all for a ruler who didn't care about them! I didn't want to see it happen so you could take over and do the same!"

"Is that why you're doing it?" Bakura questioned bitterly. Marik seemed to come back to himself for a moment. His eyes dulled somewhat and no longer glowed quite so fiercely with what Bakura was positive was hatred. Dimly, he registered in the back of his mind that some part of him that was still human was hurt by the fact that hatred being aimed toward him. He'd only ever seen Marik look like that at the Pharaoh.

"Yes," Marik hissed. "That's why I'm doing it. I've waited and waited for you to stop all of this, but you never did. Then I waited for the perfect opportunity to strike. And now all I have to do is kill you."

"If you can," Bakura said.

"You think I can't?"

"I don't. I may be horrible, but no one's been able to kill me yet," Bakura spat out.

"That's only because no one has been me," Marik said. Bakura scoffed and the blonde leaned in close to him once more. Their chests touched, and Bakura's heart thudded loudly. "It's true. No one else has been with you for so long. No one else knows how this palace of yours works, or how you work. If it were anyone else, they'd have been dead by now."

"There you go, thinking that you're special again," Bakura sneered. Marik smiled, and unlike his usual ones, it was ugly and cruel and didn't look right on his face. Bakura was used to sly, cunning, manipulative, _sexy_ smiles. Not this.

"I don't need to 'think' anything. Do you really still believe that after all this time you're still able to hide it? I know when you're looking at me, and I know why. I feel every second your eyes spend on me. I know that when I'm around you, you're not quite so much of a bitch as usual. I know _exactly_ what you think of me," Marik taunted. Bakura strove to give nothing away, but his body twitched all the same, and Marik caught it. His grin widened.

"Your control is slipping, dear Bakura. I must be putting you in quite the position, draped all over you like I am." Marik was close to his face again, closer than before this time, and then his lips were against the shell of Bakura's ear. The ruler's breath hitched and he felt those sinful lips curl. "Did you really think that I was unaware of how much you wanted me all this time?"

"Fuck you," Bakura gritted out. It was not the best he could come up with. It wasn't going to deny anything. But he couldn't force out any other words. His hands gripped the arms of his throne tightly as he strove not to move and reveal just how correct Marik's deductions were.

"I'm sure you'd like to," Marik retorted. "I'm sure you've dreamed about it countless times. Poor, poor Bakura, lusting after the one thing he can't have."

"If you're going to try to kill me, then do it already. My guards are not quite so attached to you as I," Bakura growled.

"As you wish," Marik remarked flippantly. He readied the blade and Bakura had enough time to wonder why the hell he wasn't putting up a fight. Marik was absolutely correct when he'd said that Bakura desired him. He had for a long long time now. But now, he was beginning to wonder if he was solely attracted to Marik's looks, or if there was something more to it all. He didn't have time to come to a conclusion. Marik's eyes grew the hardest he'd seen them yet, and then he pulled his hand back and thrust the knife not directly to his throat, as Bakura had assumed the target was, but to his chest, where the Sennen Ring hung at all times beneath his clothes.

00000

Bakura woke up and could not remember ever having felt as much pain in his very long life as he did now. His body felt stiff, weak, useless. He could barely move it. When he opened his eyes the world blurred and he had such a bad sensation of vertigo upon trying to move that he groaned and had to lie back down. Was he lying? The last thing he remembered was sitting in his throne. And then he'd died.

"Someone…" He tried calling for one of his numerous guards (but did he have guards if he was dead?), but his voice wouldn't work correctly. His throat felt seared and raw, and the words he had tried to utter tickled it and made him cough, which hurt his vocal cords even more.

He heard something move, the soft shifting sound of fabric sliding against fabric. There was a person here in the room with him. He tried to open his eyes again, but the world was still blurry and that awful feeling of vertigo still hung over him. He was defenseless like this! If he wasn't dead, then he very well could be soon if he couldn't do anything! Where were his damn guards?

"Hush, stop fussing. You'll only make it worse. Just relax, and wait. It'll go away."

Someone touched his head. The hand was warm and might have been comforting if Bakura made it a habit of allowing people to touch him, much less people who's identities he hadn't the faintest clue of. He struggled against the warmth of the palm, but he could barely move. It remained where it was, and against his will he found himself obeying the voice and relaxing. He didn't want to do it, but in this condition he couldn't do much else.

He opened his eyes gradually, and the dizziness began to fade. The vertigo was still there, but it was faint now, and he could deal with it. He could not yet move. His body still felt sore and used, and when he tried, he either couldn't complete the movement, or it made him feel like he was falling and he wound up having to lie on the bed—or whatever he was on—once more. He concentrated instead of making out who was in the room with him. He saw white. Lots of white. And yellow and brown. Black?

"Who…?" he tried to say. He got the word out, but it made him cough again. He winced at the pain, and then he winced as the hand was again on him, pushing him flat against the bed and forcing him to lie still once more.

"Just relax," the voice said. It was infuriating. Bakura was too disoriented to concentrate on figuring out whom it belonged to, but the haughty air of arrogance the person possessed was certainly familiar. For a second he thought it belonged to the Pharaoh. But then he remembered that the Pharaoh had been dead for years now. He had seen to that. He must be more out of it that he'd thought. What the hell had happened? If this was death, it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. If this wasn't death, well then he still wasn't satisfied with the way things were turning out.

He concentrated instead on trying to see the person in front of him. Colors began to make sense and solidify into a certain form. The white he'd seen turned into bandages. Bandages everywhere, on the person he should have expected to see from the beginning, but who made the least amount of sense in being here. The voice belonged to Marik, of course. Marik, who had killed him.

"What… the hell…" Unfortunately, while he could now see the blonde, he still wasn't able to talk. Marik shook his head and then that hand was on his arm. Bakura stopped his attempts at speech not because he had to cough, but because he didn't know what the hell was going on, and how in the world was Marik touching him so gently now when… however long ago it was, he'd been trying to kill him?

"You probably have a lot of questions," Marik said. Bakura tried his best to glare at him and was pretty convinced he pulled it off until Marik chuckled softly. Then he just felt embarrassed.

"I should probably explain, but forgive me if I don't. I'd like to wait until I'm not being kept under surveillance all day and night. Those bastards seem to think I was trying to kill you," Marik said, gesturing with his head to the door to the room. There was a guard posted in front of it, hands crossed and arms on Marik. Bakura tried to scowl. It was no wonder he was being treated like a prisoner; Marik _had_ tried to kill him!

"At any rate, you should go back to sleep. The sooner you rest and get your voice back, the sooner you can tell _them_ to stop bothering me, and the sooner I can explain to _you_ what's going on," the blonde finished. Bakura attempted to arrange his facial features in a manner that suggested _hell no he was not going to go to sleep in a room with his would-be murderer!,_ but the moment Marik made the suggestion, his eyes felt heavy. He tried to fight it, but the world grew dizzy and blurry again, and without his say-so he found himself slipping back into unconsciousness.

00000

Bakura came back to the world much faster the second time around. His body still felt like it had gone through the wringer, but when he opened his eyes he was able to see almost instantly. His throat felt a bit better as well, though he hadn't tried speaking yet. Just like before, Marik was beside him. So then what he'd remembered happening before hadn't been a dream.

Marik was slumped in a chair next to his bed, eyes closed and chest slowly rising and falling. He was murmuring softly in his sleep, and Bakura took an instant to appreciate the softness of the blonde's face before he maneuvered his leg and gave a vicious kick to the chair. Marik's eyes opened and the chair toppled backwards. Bakura exploded into a hacking laugh that did nothing to ease the pain of his throat. The guard in the room was instantly on alert, but he after deciding the situation was not dangerous, he settled back against the door.

"I see you're awake," Marik grumbled sourly as he picked himself off the floor. He winced when he stood, and a hand rubbed against his side in a manner that seemed unconscious. He sat in the chair again, but first moved it out of Bakura's rather limited kicking-range.

"Why are you here?" Bakura demanded. He was able to make full sentences now, but he had to whisper them. His throat hurt too much for him to raise his voice.

"I already told you," Marik shrugged. Bakura scowled and struggled to sit up in his bed. Marik moved to push him back down, but Bakura glared and he held off.

"You!" he called to the guard. The man turned to look at him. "What the hell is going on here?"

"We caught this traitor trying to kill you, Lord Bakura. But given who he is, we were unsure whether or not to lock him up with the other prisoners. We have been waiting for your command on the matter," the man explained humbly.

"Get out of here. I'll take care of it myself." The man looked hesitant for a second. He gifted Marik with a particularly fearsome look before leaving. When the door shut, Bakura turned again to Marik and looked at him expectantly.

"You tried to kill me," he accused. If Marik was sorry for his actions, he certainly didn't look the part. He shrugged.

"I did kill you."

"Explain," Bakura demanded.

"I killed a part of you, if you will. Even now, a part of your soul still resides in the Sennen Ring, doesn't it? This body _is_ your own now, but not all of you exists inside it. I killed the part of you that wasn't," Marik explained shortly. He said the words like it was no big deal. The fact that Bakura had nearly been murdered, and Marik himself was wrapped in so many bandages that he looked like he was trying out for the part of one of those terrible mummy movies that used to be all the rage years ago said otherwise.

"There was no part of me still in the Ring," Bakura said, frowning. "I made sure of that. I've spent enough time inside of that damn prison."

"Come on, think about it Bakura. There's a part of you that still remains in there, even if you don't acknowledge it as such. Think back to your battle with the Pharaoh. What allowed you to win?" Marik asked, leaning forward in his chair some.

Bakura put some distance between them himself, and scowled as he thought. The battle was the clearest of all his memories. He'd beaten his lifelong enemy and taken his power and the power of all seven of the Sennen Items. He would never forget his victory. But for a few moments he was unable to think of what Marik was talking about. And then it dawned on him. A piece of him that was not quite him, a piece he had never gotten rid of, that resides quietly in the Sennen Ring.

"You're talking about Zorc," he said at last. Marik nodded. "You killed Zorc? How?"

"I attacked him directly. I thought long and hard about it for a long time. I knew that I needed to get rid of him, but I didn't know the way to do it. He is literally a demon and a god in his own right. How could I kill something like that? I tried coming up with some way to damage him indirectly, or attack without his notice, but if the Sennen Ring protects him and you never let it out of your sight, there really wasn't anything I could do about it. So I did what I did and just attacked him," Marik said.

"You're an idiot," Bakura said. Marik quirked an eyebrow.

"Well that wasn't exactly what I'd been expecting to hear you say," he admitted.

"You could have gotten yourself killed by doing that! You admitted yourself that he's nearly a god, why would you do something like that?"

"Well as I'm sure you can tell, I didn't have the easiest time of it," Marik stated dryly, gesturing to the heavy bandages that covered most parts of his body. "I'm more surprised that you seem to care so much. I could have killed you in the process of my attack. He required your energy to fight me, you know."

"You know why I'm concerned," Bakura said quietly. It was the closest he would ever come to admitting that the words Marik had thrown at him before stabbing him were true. He felt something for this irritating man, even now. He glared at Marik and dared him to say a thing about it.

"I suppose I do know," Marik said carefully, nodding slightly in time to his words. The boy was smart, Bakura had never doubted that. He'd said one of the few things in response to that statement that wouldn't cause the ruler to lose it.

"Why did you do it?" Bakura asked quickly. The silence was getting to him and he didn't like it. He didn't want either of them reflecting too much on the feelings he had revealed. "I thought you wanted to kill me."

"That's what I said," Marik replied. His eyes had drifted. He was no longer looking at Bakura, and his tone had shifted, grown a bit darker. "What I really wanted was for things to get better. I don't want to see people suffering anymore. Not like they are now. Zorc is pure evil. I thought that if I got rid of him and whatever influence he holds over you, things would get better."

"Why didn't you just kill me then? I am evil, Marik. Zorc wouldn't have been dead, but he no longer would have had me. By killing me, you would have hit two birds with one stone and left this place free for you to shape it as you saw fit," Bakura pointed out. Marik shifted in his seat. Bakura's eyes never left him. He was hiding something.

"I don't want to rule over anything. I'm much happier as the hidden guard that keeps your sorry ass alive. And I don't believe that you're evil, Bakura. Not that evil. And… maybe I didn't want to kill you," Marik said quietly.

"Why not?" Bakura demanded. He needed to know.

"I've lived here with you for how many years now, Bakura? Is it that hard to believe that I might have grown a bit attached to you, even if you are a huge asshole?" Marik asked. He was almost pleading for Bakura to just accept that excuse. That made the ruler all the more curious as to what Marik's real reason was. His heart was pumping in his chest as it had before, when Marik had been so close to him. It was making him hope for things that realistically, he wouldn't bother even imagining.

"You're not telling me the truth," Bakura argued. Marik made a noise of frustration that was almost a whine. He stood from his chair and Bakura thought he would leave. He had told the guard to leave the room. Marik was no longer under surveillance; surely he could go if he wanted to. But Bakura didn't want him to. And Marik didn't go. He approached Bakura with a sour frown and bent down in front of him. Before Bakura could do anything, he felt Marik's lips against his own for such a short period he thought he were asleep and dreaming. Marik stood and Bakura grabbed his arm without thinking and pulled him onto the bed with him.

Both he and Marik made noises of pain when their bodies crashed together. Perhaps that hadn't been the best move he could have made. But Marik didn't protest much, and when the blonde stopped fighting and sank into the bed beside him, Bakura was able to quite easily push the pain out of his mind.

"Stay with me," he said. He refused to believe that he was actually pleading, and in his mind phrased the question as a command. It allowed him to feel better about his weakness. Marik smiled at him and laughed.

"Stop being such an asshole then. You can be evil, but within reason, okay?"

"I suppose I could give it a try," Bakura sighed in mock-annoyance. Marik laughed again and then the room grew silent and awkward. Bakura groaned. He'd never imagined a scenario like this would ever come to be, and now he wasn't sure what he was meant to do here. He did the first thing that popped into his head and wrapped his arms around Marik and pulled him closer. The blonde's body was warm like he remembered.

"Was that exciting enough for you?"

"Hmm?" Bakura raised his head, saw violet eyes looking down at him. He'd almost drifted off without his knowledge.

"You're always complaining about how bored you are. So was that exciting enough for you?" Marik asked again. Bakura pretended to think about it.

"I suppose," he said finally, repeating the same words from before without realizing it. He really was tired. "Though you don't have to try quite so hard to please me next time."

"Oh really?" Marik questioned, raising an eyebrow. He motioned to the space between their bodies, which wasn't really a space at all, and then to their entwined arms.

"Well, at least not like that," Bakura amended. This would be exciting enough.

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><p>Yay crappy ending! So time for random fact info stuff. I like using Baku-kun as a nickname for Bakura as opposed to 'Kura. 'Kura is cute, but I see it all over the place, and I decided "I'm going to be different!" So yay Baku-kun! It's cute. Don't try to deny it. I will know you lie. Also, this chapter was more or less going to be random smut at first, but then Marik decided to be a bitch (he seems to like doing that for me), and instead of having funthymes with Bakura, he wanted to kill him. Alas, I was helpless to do anything but allow him free-reign. Although I did kind of want smut myself. I had an idea for a PWP once with this basic plot, and then to kill time Marik gave Bakura a show with the Sennen Rod. I never wrote it and never will, but we can pretend that that actually happened. It would be fun at any rate. And finally, as I've mentioned countless times before, I have no idea how Yu-Gi-Oh ends! I have no idea about literally anything having to do with Zorc! All info read above is pulled from my head and basic threads I've seen in fanfiction.<p>

So that's it, remember please to review! I do so love reviews. And I always reply back! Thanks very much!


	27. We Gonna Have A Ball Today

Hello! So this chapter is fun. I think it's fun anyways. It was going to be a bit more involved and a bit longer, but then it was Thursday night and I hadn't finished. For the sake of this story, please suspend your beliefs and pretend like Domino is is early England during the early 1900s. Yeap. Also pretend that certain phrases and words I use, such as "sex-magnet" and "sweet-ass loot" were words that were actually spoken back then. Please don't believe that they actually were! Because they weren't. Like, at all. But I'm not a History teacher and I'm not the type of writer who's into all the historical fiction type thing, so I frankly don't give a damn if this is accurate or not. It's fanfiction, and it's all for fun. Oh, also while we're on the subject of pretend, pretend like I know something about the subject of fraud.

So about this chapter. American names are used, because they sound slightly more English than Japanese names. There is another pairing besides Thief, but it would ruin the surprise, so I won't mention it. I've done a small amount of research on things like fraud and the dress-styles of the early 20th century, but not a lot at all. This chapter is rated M! For those of you who are happy to see smut, thank **nihaomuse**. (Sorry, apparently adding the dot in your name makes FF think I'm trying to commit the evil sin of linking you all somewhere? Silliness.) No but seriously. Because the only time you were going to get it was in chapter 29. Maybe 30, but we'll get to that when we get to that, and I don't want to spoil the last chapter just yet. Okay so now I'm done babbling! Read! Enjoy! Review!

...Aaand I've officially passed Blood up in length. This... actually makes me really sad. It took me such a long time to get Blood to where it was, and this was much quicker... My updating speed really is horrendous...

**Disclaimer:** Black-Neko-Chan does not own Yu-Gi-Oh or the song "Friday" by Rebecca Black.

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><p>Chapter Twenty-Seven: We Gonna Have A Ball Today<p>

"No."

"You haven't even tried it on yet!"

"_No_."

"It's the best plan either of us have come up with so far and you know it."

"The statement is invalid. It is _not_ the best plan because it won't work, because I am _not_ wearing that. Come up with something different, preferably something that doesn't force me to be humiliated for it to succeed."

"That's impossible. You humiliate yourself daily. Face it, unless you want to just give up and let him walk away, you're going to have to put it on and act the part."

"And why can't _you_ wear that dreadful ensemble instead? I suppose there's some horribly important reason why it has to be me, correct?"

"Well yes, frankly. _I'm_ not the one who assaulted him in his own home! He knows your face, not mine, hence the disguise. It's your own fault!"

"I did not 'assault' him! I had a civil discussion with him!"

"I'm not even going to bother validating that lie. We both know how much of a temper you have when you get around him. Stop complaining and just put it on. The ball will start in a few hours, and _you_ have to get ready."

The moon is high in the sky and guests from all over the city are arriving at the front lawn of one Seto Kaiba, quite arguably the most important man in the city of Domino. The richer portion of the guest list has come in fancy automobiles. There are quite a few of these machines, as when a wealthy and well-known man such as Seto throws a ball, those belonging to the upper echelons of society always long to throw in an appearance.

Our heroes have not arrived in an automobile. Rather, they have come in a horse-drawn carriage that nearly misses a puddle of water as it comes to a stop. To Bakura, this is just another sign that he will despise this night more than any other. Marik is as cheerful as always. But then he is not the one wearing a dress.

The two lead a sort of double life. At morn, they are detectives and sleuths of the highest caliber. At night… Well at night they are _still_ detectives. But they are also top-notch thieves. Perhaps it's not good to mix two professions so different such as these, but our heroes not only get away with it, but they do it with style. After all, who really cares if they steal a priceless treasure here and there, so long as they catch their crook in the end?

Bakura is both the brains and the brawn of the operation. He is the better thief of the two of them (though Marik will deny this loudly if the subject is ever brought up [please do not bring it up]) and is always the one to come up with the plans and to think of whom next to (steal from) take down. Marik is… Well Marik is very pretty. He is only sometimes the brains and only sometimes the brawn (and in both instances he isn't very good at either. He could fight if he wanted, but he possesses a mind greatly prone to distraction, and more often than not leaves the brunt of the work to his partner). But though Marik is lacking in some areas, he makes up for these weaknesses with his talents in other departments. Marik is a master at seduction and witty word play. Bakura tries not to get into a great many arguments with the blonde (this doesn't work so well) because he almost always loses them. And Bakura does not like to lose. He doesn't feel too bad when he does (okay that's a lie—he gets _pissed_) because everyone loses against Marik. The blonde could charm the pants off a wall.

It will be a tough mission to find the evidence that will convict Seto of the numerous cases of fraud the two have built against him, but they are determined. And if a few small decorations from the elaborate house make their way into our hero's wide pockets (or the numerous hidden folds of Bakura's dress), then who will know the difference? Seto certainly will not miss them once he is in jail!

And so, let us begin the evening! All the important guests have arrived, our heroes have entered the sprawling mansion, Seto is in the midst of greeting his guests, food and drink are plenty and the music is splendid. There is nothing more to wait for but the first move!

The innards of the mansion are lavishly decorated, as are the guests that have entered it. Several well-known faces are present, but the guest list, while interesting, is not what Marik and Bakura are here for. Marik is scoping out the area and keeping an eye on Seto. Bakura is trying his best to hide himself. It is not working very well.

When the two had learned of the upcoming ball Seto was throwing, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for them to do some snooping into the life of the person they'd been trying to catch for the past year or so. All they had to do, Bakura theorized, was enter the mansion as guests and look around while they had the opportunity. They had been on the track of Seto for a while now, and had yet to find anything substantial. There had to be something hidden in his residence. And if there was, they would find it.

In a show of exceptionally bad stratagem, close to two weeks earlier Bakura had ran into the main man himself and entered a rather heated impromptu discussion where he had uttered some choice sentiments. The leader of our dastardly duo has never been fond of Seto. The result of that discussion was that Seto now knew Bakura's face quite well. That had very nearly ruined the plan to sneak in. Until Marik had come up with his own plan, complete with frills and lace and hurtful shoes.

The dress is something most women would die to wear. Bakura does not want to know where Marik got it and how. While he does look rather stunning in it (but please don't tell him that), he would much rather not be here at all if it means he is forced to go along with such a ludicrous idea. This is why he is the idea man and not Marik.

The dress is long, coral-pink, slinky and slender with long sleeves and a high ruffled collar. Bakura does not know what material it is made out of and does not care. It isn't one of the huge dresses that were so popular just a few years ago and he is thankful for that, but it is still humiliating and he feels like he can't breath correctly while wearing it. The shoes are too tight and cramped and he can barely walk and the hat that accompanies the horrid ensemble keeps dipping into his eyes. It is a ridiculous feathered atrocity with a wide brim and more decoration than it knows what to do with. When this night is done, he will kill Marik.

Marik, on the other hand, looks very handsome in a simple dark suit. He is impeccably groomed and acts the part of a gentleman so well it looks like he isn't even trying. He holds open the carriage door for Bakura and offers his hand (who slaps it away with a huff and some words no proper lady should ever utter), and when they enter the giant mansion he remains by Bakura's side at all times, as he should. He laughs with the other guests, though none of them know him. They all see the beautiful "lady" at his side and assume he must be new money. He is charismatic and smooth talking like always, and for once Bakura hates it. It attracts more attention to them, and thus, to him.

"Whenever you're done fraternizing with the guest list, perhaps we can make our way to Kaiba, if you don't mind," Bakura suggests with just a hint of his immense irritation leaking out in his voice. He would much rather get this over as quickly as possible. Normally, he enjoys taking his time with the mission and really getting the full effect of how easily the two of them are able to sneak into a person's home and do their jobs, but normally he is clothed in comfortable outerwear and does not have to pretend like he is a woman.

"Relax Bakura! He's still going around and greeting all the guests. He'll get to us eventually!" Marik is having a wonderful time and is all but impervious to his partner's bad mood. Besides, he is always in a bad mood.

"I don't care if he'll get to us eventually!" Bakura hisses. "I want him to get to us now so that we may start looking for what we came here for!" And with that, he promptly latches onto Marik's arm and drags him forward to where he has spotted Seto's tall head figure. It is very unladylike and he does not care. Marik is the only one who really seems to notice the strange looks the rest of the guests are giving them, and he smiles apologetically at them all.

Seto has been slowly making his way to all his guests, as Marik said. It is a hard duty being the host to a ball like this one and he has never been all that fond of such affairs, but in order to keep doing business in a city such like this one, it is a necessary evil. He is a bit surprised to see a woman in a pink dress drag her partner up to him, but he hides it well. The only give away is in the slight raising of a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. The gods themselves could not hope to look as perfectly as he does. He would know. He has spent the past hour or so before the ball in front of a mirror, perfecting his icy-cold looks. He's just a bit of egoist, but we won't hold it against him. He does look very good, after all.

The women (who we of course know to be just one of our heroes), jabs her partner in the side, making him scowl at her before straightening up and gifting Seto with a smile that would melt the hearts of those covered under the most frigid of ice. It doesn't really work on Seto.

"Ah, pleasure to meet you Mr. Kaiba! A wonderful ball you've held, and it's just beginning! I apologize for my rudeness, but my wife here was just dying to meet you. If I didn't know better, I would say she fancies you!" This is accompanied with a laugh and a fierce reddening of the young woman's face, who seems dead-set on hiding behind the gentleman she is with. The gentleman stumbled forward and shoots a glare at his wife. Seto accepts the behavior all in stride. He is well used to the idiocies of those who admire him and aspire to the greatness he represents.

"Oh, I apologize, I haven't even introduced myself yet! How rude of me! I've been so considered with my wife here I completely forgot! This woman will be the death of me one day!" The man gives another one of his rehearsed laughs and offers his hand. Seto accepts it with an inward sigh. The trivialities of this life. "You can call me Namu Aldrich!"

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Aldrich. I hope you enjoy the party," Seto says.

"Oh I'm sure we will!" Mr. Aldrich laughs again. His laughter is bothersome. Seto is almost happy that he will be able to escape it and greet other guests. He is almost able to get away, but then the man has the audacity to grab his arm. When Seto turns around, he doesn't even look ashamed that his hands are still toughing him.

"Say, you don't mind if the little wife and I explore this beautiful mansion of yours, do you? She just loves places like these. You know how women are I'm sure. She'll have the time of her life tonight and then spend all of next week gossiping about it to the other little misses!" The idea of someone exploring his home is not one that Seto likes, but remaining any longer in this man's company is an idea he likes even less.

"Of course. Now if you'll excuse me, I have other guests to attend to," Seto says, forever managing to keep his temper in check in the face of such nuisance. He truly is something akin to a god. But at any rate he manages to get away, which leaves our villain-heroes free to discuss whatever they want, and to wander wherever they will.

"I _hate_ you. I hope you realize this will be the last work of your career, because after this night is done I'm going to kill you slowly and painfully," Bakura hisses into Marik's ear. His hand is in his partner's, and he quickly reverses their positions and squeezes painfully. Marik yanks his hand away and scowls at his companion—who happens to be taller than him now because of the heeled shoes he is wearing. This strikes Marik as horribly funny, but he makes the wise decision of not mentioning it just yet. Maybe when Bakura is no longer looking at him like he really does wish to make good on his word.

"Well it might all turn out well if you stopped trying to ruin everything with your antics," Marik said knowingly. The kick Bakura had given him while he'd been talking to Marik hadn't felt very good at all. Not to mention it had made Seto look at him funny. "It's not even as bad as you're making it out to be!" Bakura fumed.

"Oh really? _Oh really?_ Says the man not stuck wearing a dress! You have _no_ idea how difficult it is walking in this thing, and how humiliating pretending to be your wife is! _Why_ did you even say something like that?" Bakura spits. Marik looks affronted.

"Well I didn't want Kaiba thinking you were some manner of prostitute! I was protecting your honor by marrying you!" he says, a bit too loudly. Some wandering eyes are looking over to the two of them. Bakura slams a hand over his mouth with a gloved hand and drags him over to a window.

"Do you _really_ think that I care about my honor? I'm not a fucking _woman_, Marik! I care about my honor as a man, and you seem perfectly content to step all over _that_!" Bakura is angry. Bakura has never felt quite so angry as he is now, he is sure.

"Well fine then," Marik says. He is doing a good job of sulking. When he normally does this, Bakura finds himself giving up and giving in to whatever inane thing Marik wants now, as long as it is not too ridiculous. Right now he does not care in the least. "If you hate it so much, we'll just leave."

"_No_." If there is one positive thing that can be said about Bakura, it is that he does not give up without a fight. Even while wearing a dress. "I'm already dressed in this thing, we're already here and we're going through with this. We're going to get what we came here for as fast as possible and then we're leaving. Now stop making nice with the idiots around here and let's get on with it!"

Marik is at a loss for words for a moment. It's not every day that Bakura actually decides to go through with his plans, especially not when he hates them as much as he does this one. But he smiles a second later. He would never say it, but there's something appealing about the dress his partner is wearing. He is sure it is because it's funny as hell, and he's happy that he doesn't have to lose the hilarity factor just yet.

So we watch as our heroes move from the bottom part of the Kaiba house to the higher areas that are not clogged up by the many guests littering the floors. They climb the stairs and Bakura tries not to kill Marik as he holds his hand and helps him up. It is all for show of course, but Bakura just wants this to end as quickly as possible. He is hoping that they will find the documents (or whatever) that will prove Seto is guilty of fraud so they can get out of here. They will not.

Our heroes do not know it, but it will be much more difficult for them to achieve their aim than they'd thought. Seto is not a stupid man, and they are greatly underestimating him. He does not leave his business materials lying on his desktop as the two thieves and detectives are used to, but has them securely locked up in the best safe money can buy at this point in time. This will not prove much of a deterrent to Bakura, who has yet to meet a safe that he cannot best, but first he will have to find it. Seto does not have it lying around, and there are many rooms in his mansion indeed. Rooms that our hero-villains become very well acquainted with.

There are many things potential objects for them to steal, though neither thief takes a thing until they have first found the necessary evidence that will put Sero away for a long, long time. The two have a system, and they will keep to it. Crooks and pick-pockets are arrested daily, and the thing that keeps them both from populating the very cells they send so many people into is that they are smart. (Well, Bakura is smart. Marik just thankfully listens to him when it matters.) They can only steal from a person after they have guaranteed they have found him guilty of some crime. So although contemplating which priceless vase or painting will bring them the most money is much better and easier to do than think of how the feels feel like they are being sliced into with a knife with every step he takes, Bakura does not touch a single thing until they first find what they are looking for.

"This is going nowhere," Bakura mutters sourly. The first of our duo feels as if he has been wandering these rooms aimlessly for hours now. He's only been doing so for about an hour and a half, but that time _has_ been spent doing nothing.

"You giving up now?" Marik questions, opening another door that leads to yet another room that will most likely contain nothing of value—evidence-wise anyways. _Every_ room contains _something_ of value.

"I _don't_ give up," Bakura hisses. Then he grimaces as he takes a particularly painful step, a look Marik notices has been showing up on his face more and more often. "But it would have been nice if you'd known what we were searching for and perhaps the general vicinity of where to find it _before_ we went on this wild goose chase."

"You're the one who decided we should go after Kaiba!" Marik protests. This is fact, but Bakura does not care. They finish searching through the current room without any luck and leave. There is a balcony a bit of ways from them. The window is open and the curtains are blowing lightly. Marik thinks that maybe a break would improve Bakura's mood some, and so leads them over to it.

Bakura doesn't usually show signs of his discomfort, but when he leans against the rail of the balcony and takes some of the weight off his aching feet, he lets slip a relieved sigh and lets his eyes close. He has never thought a rest could be quite so nice as this one is. He does not understand how women could possibly bare to wear the things they do. If he truly were a woman, he likely would have killed himself by now. This is torture of the worst kind.

Marik is strangely quiet beside him, but Bakura doesn't let it bother him. Any time Marik is actually quiet is a blessing. If he knew the thoughts that were going through Marik's head, he may feel a little differently about that, but while we do, he does not.

Marik is being quiet because he is busy contemplating how pretty Bakura looks. Bakura has always looked pretty and this is not a new thought to Marik, but just _how_ pretty the male actually is hits him all at once. Being the sex-magnet that he is, Marik is used to good-looking people approaching him on a daily basis, and thinks himself damn good at judging the level of attractiveness in others. Right now, Bakura blows all of those others out of the water. With his eyes closed and that look of relaxed contentment of his face, he seems like a reasonably nice guy. (Of course he isn't really, but his attitude and wit is half of his charm.) The way the moonlight falls on his pale skin makes it look soft and creamy and his hair positively glows. Even the dress makes him look damn good. It's not really Marik's fault that he does what he does next. He truly cannot help himself. He's never been good at denying himself something he wants, and right now he is quite positive that he wants Bakura.

Bakura feels the weight of a body that must be Marik's press against him, and although he _really_ does not want to open his eyes and ruin this moment by dealing with Marik's ridiculousness, he has no idea what the hell the blonde is doing now. So he opens his eyes and finds that Marik is practically on top of him, and pushing him hard against the balcony railing.

"What the _hell_ are you doing?" Bakura screeches.

"You look very pretty, you know that?" Marik questions. Bakura is half-disturbed to hear that his voice is low and husky.

"That's _wonderful_, now _kindly_ get the hell _off me!_" Every word Bakura utters is dripping with venom, but Marik cannot bring himself to care. He cannot deny to himself that every now and then, usually before going to bed when he is too tired to properly screen his thoughts, he has imagined having Bakura in this very position. The other male _is_ pretty, and the two of them have been together for a while now. It is only natural. This just seems to be the opportunity he has been waiting for.

Marik leans into Bakura's protesting body and presses their lips together. Bakura's mind goes blank. It is almost comical to see the way his eyes widen, but alas, our two thieves are a bit too busy to notice the little things we are able to see from our vantage point. Marik's eyes are closed anyways.

Bakura does not fight back not because he doesn't want to (because he does), but because he is not sure if he can. He likes to roll with the punches and not let anything surprise him, but this has indeed surprised him, and whenever he tries to get his mind back into the game, he finds something that ruins the chance of that happening. Like the warm palm that he can feel now on his thigh, even through the material of the dress. There exists a part of him too (that he will loudly deny having, so don't even bother to make him say otherwise), that doesn't quite mind this attention, that may have thought about Marik in this way as well.

Marik is a little too caught up in what he is doing to really care that Bakura is not moving his lips any and has more or less frozen to the spot. This is okay, because Marik will move enough for the both of them. The palm that had been (innocently) resting against Bakura's thigh now grabs the flesh as he hoists the leg up and around him. And then the actions of his hand are not quite so innocent anymore, as Marik decides now to find out if Bakura's flesh is as smooth as it looks.

Bakura's already wide eyes widen even more when he feels actual skin touching his inner thigh, and he wrenches himself as far away from Marik as he can get. It's not very far. Any father and he would tumble over the feeble balcony railing and be dashed to the ground below.

"_What are you doing?!_" he positively shrieks. If Marik truly notices the commotion his partner is throwing, even we cannot say, as he is focused solely on the task at hand, so to speak. He has traveled up further than before (because as it turns out, Bakura is _very_ soft. It's a wonderful irony that he appreciates even as his head is clouding over with lust) and now his fingers graze against the only fabric that Bakura would be wearing under this dress. He moves in for the kill. Bakura shrieks quite loudly into his ear.

"_Get away from me!_" he yells. His entire face is red, much to his embarrassment. (Although we think it looks quite cute, and Marik does as well. He's never seen Bakura quite so abashed and he's almost wondering just how much further he can take this before he comes to be made to regret it.)

Now Marik has done several things close to this before (as he is very hot, he will tell you), but never with a man, so even though Bakura is wearing a dress and looks damn feminine enough, he's a little bit apprehensive. Not so much because Bakura is a man, but because Bakura is Bakura, and there's the good chance that if his hand travels any higher up that dress, he really might not make it through this night all in one piece. However, he's always been a bit of a daredevil, so he bypasses the lump he had touches earlier and reaches his fingers in under the fabric and touches skin.

Bakura is ashamed to admit that he jumped when he felt Marik's hand touch him. He does not even want to think that maybe Marik touching him feels much better than whenever he touches himself. (However, he does.) He shudders when Marik flexes his fingers and wrap them around him completely. There has not been anything even slightly arousing about this night up until this moment, but he quickly finds blood rushing to that particular area the longer Marik keeps his fingers there. It takes an embarrassingly short amount of time for him to become completely hard.

"Marik, let me go," Bakura says. His voice wavers just a bit at the end of the sentence and he has to bite his lip to keep anything other than words from escaping his mouth. His whole body shudders again as Marik begins to slowly move his hand up and down, and he leans in just a bit closer to the warm body in front of him.

"You don't really mean that," Marik says lowly. His voice is even deeper than before. Bakura's face looks delicious tinted with red the way it is, and Marik cannot take his eyes off him.

"Let me go!" Bakura demands, a little more insistently this time. He pushes against Marik's body, but the movement is a useless one, as instead of a push it becomes a grab, leading Marik closer to him. The blonde moves in with delight. This is better than he ever imagined it could be.

Marik shakes his head and moves in for another kiss. Kisses are addictive. He's always liked them, but he is particularly fond of kissing Bakura now, even if his partner still hasn't kissed back yet. His heart races when Bakura moans into his mouth as he quickens the movement of his hand.

Bakura is clinging to Marik's suit now. He doesn't want this but he does, and his strength to fight against it has completely left him in favor of keeping himself upright instead. The fact that Marik has managed to keep himself standing is very helpful. If he hadn't, Bakura is quite sure he would have been over the side of the balcony by now.

Marik's touch is nothing short of torture. His movements are by far too slow or too hurried, and the fact that he continually varies them is maddening. Bakura shakes and shudders and tries to keep himself from crying out even more than he already has because it is embarrassing. He bites his lip so many times that he breaks through the sensitive skin and begins to bleed. Marik laps the blood away, an action that is entirely too erotic. This needs to stop. He cannot handle this anymore.

Luckily for Bakura (and unluckily for us as well as Marik, who is really starting to get into this and about a minute from reaching into his own pants and stroking himself with his free hand), the scene under the starlight is interrupting by the sound of footsteps and the startled bumbling of a man who's voice is obnoxiously familiar when he sees what he has accidentally interrupted.

"Shit! 'm sorry, I didn't know anyone was up 'ere, an' I was just tryin' ta find my way back down to the ball an' all, an' wouldn't ya know it but damn this mansion 'ere is 'uge!"

Bakura's raised leg hits the ground with a speed that is almost inhuman and he tries to unglue himself from Marik's body. It doesn't work at all, because there is literally nowhere else to go besides off the balcony. Marik's hand flops to his side, now devoid of the warm flesh it had been caressing, and he has the decency to at least look embarrassed by recent events. Then, stepping awkwardly away from Bakura, he looks hatefully at the person who has interrupted his fun. It is a blonde with brown eyes that he recognizes almost instantly.

"Marik! Is that you? I didn't recognize ya in that fancy suit you got there! Where's that ass'ole you call a partner? If you're 'ere, 'e's gotta be around too!"

The newcomer on the scene is Joey Wheeler, a man Marik and Bakura have run into often. He holds a similar sort of role as our two heroes do, except he is not nearly as competent as they. Nor are his fingers quite as sticky, if you understand what we mean. His detective partner-in-crime is a man known as Yami Mutou, and if Joey is here, then Yami cannot be far behind. In fact, he is not far behind at all. He shows up behind Joey and notices the two in front of him rather quickly. The two notice him just as quickly, and when Bakura catches his face, he cannot help but to groan out his distaste. All of his arousal disappears at just the sight of this man.

"Bakura?" Yami frowns. Marik's head whips to Bakura fast enough to cause him whiplash, and Bakura tries to cover his face just a few seconds too late. Joey's eyes widen to saucers. The room remains quiet for an indefinite period of time that seems to stretch on for eons, but is really just enough time to explain a few basic things.

Joey and Yami have been teammates for quite some time now. Not quite as long as Bakura and Marik have been teammates, but for a long time all the same. They have constantly been striving to reach the same recognition as their competition and have been unable to do so. Up until they decided to take down the biggest name of them all: A mister Seto Kaiba. Which leads them to this very ball, where they have been trying to find the very same evidence as our two heroes that will convict Seto of fraud, where they have (or at least Joey has) stumbled upon their two rivals in what is a very obviously compromising position.

And with that necessary exposition now out of the way, we return to the drama that is about to unfold between the four males. Marik is caught looking between Yami and Joey and then back to Bakura, unsure of what he should be doing in this situation. Bakura is torn between wanting to get the hell out of dodge and acting like the fact he is wearing a dress is no big deal. Yami is still trying to figure out if he is really seeing what he thinks he is really seeing. Joey is frantically trying to erase the image of what he had walked into from his brain before it becomes etched into his mind, which it will.

"Yes I'm wearing a fucking dress, okay? It's a disguise! Now can we _please_ all stop staring at me like I've got some kind of disease!" Bakura finally yells at last. Joey stammers.

"B-but the two-a you, the two-a you was-was—"

"We were what?" Bakura demands, clearly threatening the blonde with violence if he does not shut up right this instant. Joey does the smart thing and shuts up right this instant. Bakura is not one to be messed with, especially not when he looks as fearsomely angry as he does right now.

"Well then," Yami interrupts, "We all must be here for one reason. To take down Kaiba."

"That's what we're here for!" Marik announces a bit too cheerfully. Bakura stamps down on his foot (and in those shoes it really hurts!) and gives him a glare that states that he has said too much.

"Us as well," Yami murmurs. "I'm guessing from the fact that the two of you are still here and… ehem… _in disguise_… that you have not found anything. We have been just as unlucky."

"Get to the point here, asswipe," Bakura snarls. Yami ignores the insult. On any other occasion he would not just stand there and take it, but this is a special night, and he is dressed like a man, as he should be.

"The point is that I am proposing our two groups work together. We all know that Kaiba is guilty of fraud. I say we search for the evidence of this guilt together and take him down as one."

"No. Not happening," Bakura says. "I hate you and have hated you and will continue to hate you and under no circumstances will I work together with you."

"Bakura…" Marik begins to say, but the dress-wearing male quickly cuts him off.

"_No_. I don't care what you have to say, the answer is and always will be _no_."

"I know you don't like him Bakura, but even you have to admit that this is taking far too long on our own. Maybe if we work together with them, we'll actually be able to find something before the ball is over," Marik argues.

"No! Have you suddenly forgotten what the word means, Marik? This isn't the first time today that you've ignored me when I've said it!" Bakura snaps. His face reddens mere seconds after the words have been spoken, and Marik's follows. Joey's turns a strange shade of green, and he decides to leave the party while everyone is still arguing. No one notices his absence, which is fine by him. He now has what he needs anyways.

"The point is—" Bakura and Marik are still arguing, and Yami is still patiently waiting for them to come to some sort of conclusion on the matter. He sighs, thinks that he could have explored at least another three rooms by now. Music drifts up from the lower portions of the mansion. The ball should be in full swing by now. For a moment, he wishes he could go down there and join the others. Yami is a detective because his sense of justice demands he try to stop any evil and unlawful behavior. He finds the work rewarding, but tiresome as well. He would love to one day retire and no longer have to deal with this type of nonsense.

While our heroes argue and Yami daydreams about a life where he would be fraternizing with the well-known names downstairs instead of finding evidence to convict the best known of fraud, the man of the evening himself arrives on scene with a follower. Seto rolls his eyes at the behavior before him, nods to the man at his side, and prepares to make his entrance. It will be grand and powerful, just like everything else about him.

Several things happen at once, so it's necessary for us to slow down the action just a bit to take in everything. Bakura's angry words stop as he feels what is unmistakably the muzzle of a pistol press hard against his back. Marik too stops his talking as he notices the figure approaching his partner, a bit too late to change the action of things. The expression on Bakura's face alerts him to the matter that something is wrong here, and he stops the step he was about to take before he even takes it. Yami's brows scrunch together in confusion as he takes in the appearance of the figure. As no one is on the upstairs levels, it is not particularly well lit, and though it takes him a moment, it is hard not to recognize the silhouette of the man he has been working with for years. Finally, as his mouth shapes the beginnings of a question, Seto steps into the light. All eyes go to him, which is exactly where he wants them. He smiles, just a bit. It's as big of a smile as a man like Seto can pull off. He doesn't do it often, but then he always has liked being the center of attention.

"Well well, it seems as if some of my esteemed guests have lost their way. Don't you know that the ball is downstairs?"

"Oh, Mr. Kaiba! You remember me, don't you? My wife and I here were just—"

"Can it, Namu Aldrich. I know who you are. You and your 'wife'. I know who all of you are," Seto says. Marik is taken aback. Bakura is not, and neither is Yami. Yami has seen the face of the man with the gun to Bakura's back, and the gears in our hero's head are working furiously to crank out the one piece of information that causes the puzzle to fall into place.

"Joey," he saws at last. He turns his head, but the brim of the damn hat he is wearing is too wide, and the gun presses harder into his back. "You told him we were here, didn't you?"

"Joey, how could you?" Yami asks. "We were partners!" The betrayal is palpable in the air and obvious on Yami's face. Bakura is annoyed, and Marik still looks a little lost.

"Sorry Yams, ain't nothin' 'gainst you, but I couldn't let any-a you harm Kaiba's reputation," Joey says. He does sound quite sorry about it too.

"But… Joey, why?" Yami questions.

"Because he's a good dog. Loyal. He knows how to please his master," Seto responds. The look on his face is entirely satisfied by the outcome of affairs. The look on Joey's face is a bit sour at the remark, but for once in his life he does not open his mouth to refute it. He doubts it would earn him points with anyone now.

"Oh my god! You're _sleeping_ with _Kaiba_?" Marik exclaims, quite loudly. He's not really sure which is more disturbing to him: the fact that Joey has betrayed them all, or the fact that it's for Seto. Or the fact that by the looks on the faces of the two, his guess is completely correct. Yami blanches and even Bakura stops looking so pissed off for a second.

"Um," Joey starts, but Seto is quick to cut him off at that point. If there's one thing he is sure of, it is that the mutt can only make things worse whenever he opens that yap of his.

"The mutt's reasons for his actions do not matter. What does matter is that if you do not tell me what you are looking for and what proof you have against me so far, I'll kill the pretty _lady_ here," Seto sneers. There is a moment of pause between everyone. Yami is still trying to wrap his mind around the sudden revelations he has been forced to acknowledge, and Marik is stuck thinking _well shit, we're screwed_.

"No."

But one voice rings out! All eyes turn to Bakura. He is wearing his most deadly glare yet, and he is bestowing its full power to everyone (except Joey, who is still behind him, after all). Even Seto, powerful, confidant Seto, feels a little nervous in the face of such wrath.

"_Hell_. _No_. I am _not_ being some silly damsel in distress! _No one_ is going to swoop down and save me! I don't care if I _am_ dressed like a woman, I've had it up to _here_ with all this shit!" In an instant, Bakura has brought his heeled foot down on Joey's toes. Joey instinctively bends down, and Bakura smashes the palm of his hand up against the blonde's nose and hears bones break. While Joey is howling in pain, he grabs the gun and wrests in from him and turns it on all the others in the room with him.

"Marik." He nods over to his side, and Marik dumbly follows. He looks at Joey, thinks to himself that maybe he should listen next time Bakura says no. He shudders to think how his nose might heal if it were broken. It would ruin the perfect symmetry of his beautiful face! (Which really would be a shame.)

"I don't care _what_ the three of you want to do. Spend the entire night fighting about who's sleeping with who and who knows shit on who, I frankly don't give a fuck. We're leaving, and if any of you assholes come after us now or in the future, you'll find out just how fast this _lady_ can shoot a bullet into your head," Bakura sneers. Marik again thinks the he _really_ should start listening to Bakura in the future.

Our heroes turn, quite confident that no one will bother to go after them, and they are right. Marik still kind of wants to find evidence against Seto, because Seto has some sweet-ass loot in his mansion, but at this point, Bakura no longer cares in the slightest. He is a thief through and through and knows that there will always be other opportunities. Preferably where he is not required to wear a dress.

On the way out of the house, the dancing guests are forced to part to allow the gentleman and the ferociously beautiful woman through. Several of them have been wondering where their host has gotten to, but after seeing the couple (okay so really just the woman) storm down from the upper levels of the house, they decide they are content right where they are after all. Food and drink are still plenty and the music is still splendid.

Bakura is still stomping across the large mansion grounds before Marik catches up to him and takes a hold of his arm. He swirls around and Marik raises an arm to protect himself and flinches away. When Bakura doesn't hit him, he hesitantly lowers it a bit.

"What do you want, Marik?" Bakura deadpans. The anger is still there—oh _yes_ the anger is still there—but it's hidden behind a deceptively calm surface.

"Oh, um…" It's not like him to be nervous or stutter, but right now, Marik is nervous. But he keeps thinking back to the way Bakura looked under the moonlight shining in from the open balcony (which, coincidentally, is the same as he looks now, only a lot angrier), and that motivates him to go through with what will likely get him killed. He smiles.

"Let's stay a while. The night's still young. Come on." He takes Bakura's other arm and begins to dance with him to the tune of the music that can be heard from the mansion. The sound is soft and the grass is a bit wet and there's a chill in the air, but it's nice all the same. Bakura is actually moving with him, although he is still looking at Marik like he is an idiot and is seconds away from hitting him.

"What are you doing?" he asks carefully.

"Dancing," Marik responds. He thought that was obvious enough, but maybe Bakura didn't know they were doing it and that was why he wasn't joining in?

"I can see that. Why?"

"Because I want to dance with you," Marik says. Something changes in Bakura's expression. It closes off more than before, and now Marik really can't read any of it. He hasn't ever been as good at understanding Bakura as Bakura is him, but that's never really bothered him until now, because Bakura is his friend and his partner and he trusts him.

"You do realize, Marik," Bakura starts, slowly, carefully, "that I am a male, no matter what I am dressed like tonight. That's not going to change. Ever."

"Well yeah, duh, of course I know that," Marik says. He is still trying to joke and remain upbeat, but Bakura's attitude is all off and it's getting him down too. He comes to a stop. Bakura isn't really dancing anyways.

"Then why are you trying to dance with me in front of Kaiba's mansion?" Bakura questions. This is getting nowhere. Marik doesn't understand what Bakura is trying to say here. He's trying to, he really is, but it's just not coming through. Bakura sees that in his expression. He breathes out a resigned huff of air and turns to leave. The carriage is waiting and all he wants to do now is get this damn dress off and forget that this night ever happened. Marik stops him again.

"Bakura, I don't—"

"I know you don't," Bakura says shortly. "You never do. This is why I don't allow you to think of the plans. You never put as much thought into anything as is needed. You just act, and don't wonder how those actions will affect anything."

"Bakura—"

"Let's just leave, okay? I'm tired and my feet are killing me."

"Bakura, wait!"

"What do you want?" Bakura snaps finally, anger getting the best of him. Marik flinches a bit at this, but he recovers quickly and stands strong.

"I want to dance with you. I know that you're not a woman. You're a man. And I don't need you to wear a dress to know that I like you and I want you."

Marik's arms go to Bakura's own again, and then they are swaying back and forth to the music. Marik is smiling softly. Bakura is still too stunned to say a thing. "So let's just dance, okay?"

They dance while Bakura attempts to regain himself and Marik praises himself on figuring out the problem and not getting killed. It's a nice, sweet scene, watching them hold each other and move in half-circles and sidesteps. The moon hangs full overhead and the party going on in the mansion is just background music. Their victory or failure does not matter now. And Bakura has finally gotten his head back into the game. He smiles wickedly and presses himself hard against Marik to capture his lips.

This is a nice change of pace for Marik, because now it's finally Bakura doing the kissing, and the fact that there's one willing participant instead of two makes it a hell of a lot better. Not that earlier wasn't good, but this, this is _good_. He can feel himself getting hot and bothered by thinking of earlier and what might happen _later_, but he tries to ignore the slight twinges of discomfort as best he can. He doesn't want to ruin the mood. Bakura is meanwhile using all the many skills he possesses in this art to thoroughly leave Marik's mouth plundered. It is quite nice indeed.

"I'm still not letting you come up with plans in the future," he breathes against Marik's cheek when they part. His arms tighten against the blonde even more, and a wider grin comes to his face when he feels Marik against his thigh.

"Hey, this one wasn't half bad!" Marik protests.

"Then I'd hate to see the ones that are even worse," Bakura quips. "That is why from now on, every plan will be done by me. I'll come up with some new way to get Kaiba. For now, why don't we head on home?"

"But it's such a long way back, and I was having fun!" Marik protests. Bakura only laughs.

"I'm sure we can find something to occupy our time with. And I, for one, am ready to get out of this dress."

Marik catches on to the meaning of these words a bit quicker this time, and he grins as he hurries to catch up with Bakura and get to the carriage. They climb in, and the sight of two bodies falling to the seat can be seen before the doors close and the carriage rides off into the night.

And thus ends our story! It didn't exactly go as planned, and our heroes did not leave what they came here for, but the adventure is in the uncertainty! And we're quite sure that neither of them (whiners though they are) would complain about how things turned out in the end…

* * *

><p>Yay chapter! For this one I kept thinking of it as the plot to some super cool action movie where there's spying and double-crossing and all that jazz that goes on in action movies, so I changed the POV around a bit to kind of give it that omniscient narrator movie-ish feel instead of focusing in on one character. Which was fun to do, but unfortunately I think that and the fact that I didn't make this chapter as long as I was planning kind of cut short the parts that some characters had, like Joey and Yami. Oh well. They'll live. Also interesting and completely unimportant fact: I was going to make Marik's alias Ainsworth Aldrich, because come on, what is more badass and awesome sounding and English than that? Plus it had two A names, so it was really obvious that it was in fact not a real name. Then I remembered that he already had an alias that he used. So sad!<p>

So something I forgot to mention when I first put up the chapter but then woke up this morning thinking "Wow I should really add that" because by now everyone should know how much I like to babble trivial inanities in these ANs and if they don't then where the hell have you been this entire time because seriously? This is me. Anyways I'm probably going to get the wrath of yaoi-fangirls raining down on me because of this, but I really don't like dudes in dresses. I mean, if it's for a humorous purpose then it's hilarious, yeah. But I like yaoi because I like men with men, not because I like a man with another man who kind of also looks really feminized and tends to wear women's clothing (says the girl writing fiction about possibly the two bishiest anime characters in the world, one who-arguably-does wear female's clothing). I don't know, maybe I'm strange? But that's never really been something I've been into. The reason it exists in this chapter is just because Bakura has pretty and long hair and sometimes I think because he's so pale he'd look good with pink. That's probably the most hypocritical statement in the world given what I just got done saying. I apologize for the uselessness of this huge paragraph, but hey, I like to talk. And soon this fic will end and then where will you get ramblings like this?!

You know what, if anyone ever gets annoyed by these, just tell me! I'll cut them down!

So this is the last chapter I'll be writing in Italy! Yaay! I'm ready to go home. In honor of that, please review! Thank you!


	28. Tomorrow Is Saturday

HI LET'S ALL PRETEND LIKE THIS IS NOT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATE KAY? I mean hi! So I had some troubles. First I got back from Italy and did not have internet at my house, so there was no update that Friday. Then I moved into my apartment at my college area and so was pretty busy with the first week of class and whatnot and all the work I have, so I kind of missed Friday (hence this Saturday update but let's just kind of forget about that).

So this chapter does NOT have the Citronshipping I thought it was going to have! Well... you could kind of maybe argue that it does, but no, it really doesn't. I had an idea in mind, but then I wound up writing something else, because the idea didn't really fit with the lyric. So. You get this! I actually have a separate Citronshipping fic I wrote most of while in Italy, so once I get that finished it'll be uploaded as a oneshot at some point, but yeah. There's really no Citronshipping. I'm afraid I've lied to you all. Such a bad Devon! Now have this (late) chapter to make you all happy.

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. Or the song "Friday." My disclaimers are slowly becoming less amusing.

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><p>Chapter Twenty-Eight: Tomorrow Is Saturday<p>

"I'm not scared of monsters," the boy said persistently and proudly. It was his third time arguing this fact.

"And I don't believe you," the voice said.

"Well I'm _not_," the boy said again. He _wasn't_. He'd _never_ been afraid of monsters. Why would he be? He'd never met any. Until the voice had started speaking about them, the thought of beasts and monsters had never even crossed his mind. There were no monsters down here. There were snakes and scorpions and other bugs and nasties, but there weren't any monsters. He _knew_.

"How do you know?" the voice asked. The boy was startled for a moment and lost his fiery attitude. Had he said that aloud? How did the voice know?

"I know," the boy said, "because I haven't ever seen any. Maybe _you_ have, but I haven't."

The voice laughed. It was strange, hearing it laugh like that. It sort of echoed all around his head, and made him think of the moths he sometimes liked to trap in jars. They just flew around and around in circles, bumping into invisible walls and trying to get out until they died. The voice was a lot like that, he thought.

"I don't think it's very funny," the boy said. He didn't like being laughed at.

"No, you wouldn't," the voice said. "You're not old enough yet. Come find me in a few years and then tell me if you still don't believe in monsters."

The boy did come again when he was older. He was not much older, but he thought he was old enough. He _felt_ older, thought it had only been a year, and he thought that was what mattered. He wanted to prove to the voice that he was not afraid. He did not believe in monsters and he would not believe in monsters. They weren't real, after all.

The voice was hidden away in a dark room that felt colder and darker than the boy's room and nights when the moon had hidden its bright face. He did not like going in it. He was not allowed to go in it. It was a forbidden room, and to reach it he had to steal the key from his father.

His father kept the key under a picture of the boy's mother. It was the only thing like it in their home. Sometimes the boy liked to sneak into his father's room and just look at the picture of the beautiful woman he had killed. Sometimes he cried when he thought about her. Today he did not think about her. He did not want to cry. He thought that if he did, the voice would make fun of him. The voice was cold and powerful, if he remembered it correctly. A part of it reminded him of his father.

Inside the room were three items that sparkled at him merrily though the room was dark and cold. The boy had never seen anything like them before in his life. The first was a necklace. It looked the least menacing but he still kept his distance from it. The next was a long stick was a winged ball attached to the top of it. The boy did not like it. It seemed to call to him, and he shuddered and turned away. The last was a ring with a pyramid in the middle. This was the one he was looking for. This one felt alive, and menacing.

"How disappointing. I'd meant just a few more years than one. You're still a child. You'll hardly be able to hold a proper conversation."

"Who are you?" the boy asked.

"A spirit that lives inside the ring here. Nothing more, nothing less. I was once a thief and a stealer of souls, but now I'm just a parasite," the voice said.

"Are there other spirits?" the boy asked.

"Just me, I'm afraid," the voice said. It was dry and sarcastic and biting and not at all raspy and old like the boy thought a ghost's voice would sound. It had sounded that way when he'd been younger too, but he didn't remember it clearly. The voice now was closer and louder.

"What are they? The items? The long stick one feels strange. Not like the ring, but like it's calling me," the boy said. He didn't like it. He didn't want to go anywhere near it.

"Calling you, eh? It's accepted you as its master. You should answer it," the voice said. The boy imagined it smiling. If it had a smile, it would be sharp and thin and red. The smile of a beast and a monster.

"I don't want to," the boy said.

"Don't be afraid of it. If it has called out to you, then it's your fate to accept it. You can't run away from your destiny," the voice said.

"I don't run away from anything!" the boy said. The voice chuckled at that. The sound was a bit better than the cold laughter, but not much.

"Of course not. You don't believe in monsters, correct?" the voice asked.

"No, I don't," the boy said. He did not like this room and he did not like the voice in his head and he did not like his father, but none of those things were monsters, and he was not afraid. "Monsters aren't real."

"Is that true? I'll cede that point to you; perhaps the ones you're thinking of aren't. But there are plenty of monsters in the world. I've seen them. I've _been_ them. And you aren't so secluded from them as you'd like to think you are, trapped down here in your dark hole," the voice said. It sort of chuckled again. The boy still didn't like it. It made him feel cold.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"Oh you'll see in time," the voice said. "But perhaps you should spend your time now getting out of here. One of them is coming."

The boy did not know what exactly the voice was talking about, which would have irritated him at any other moment but for this one. Now he was seized with terror. Someone was coming, monster or not. And it could only be one person.

Later, the boy did not remember how he had gotten out of the room so fast. He did not remember grabbing the strange golden ring as he left, and he only somewhat remembered that cold voice telling him to put the ring back, that no one was coming, that he was an _idiot_. He did not care if it was true that no one was coming. Someone _could_ come, and so he ran to his father's room and hid the key, then dashed to his own so fast it seemed like something truly was chasing him. He remembered shoving the ring down under his cot and then closing his eyes under his old blanket and ignoring the burn of them.

He did not touch the ring for some time. He wished that he had never grabbed it and brought it with him. Just its presence in his room made the entire area feel cold and dark like the first room it had been hidden in. The forbidden room. Even the safety of his blanket did nothing to dispel the evil he felt surrounding him now. He tried to ignore it, but the task was nearly impossible. He wanted it gone; yet he dared not go back to the forbidden room. He'd gotten lucky once. It would not happen again.

When he did unearth the ring from beneath his bed, it sparkled merrily in his hands, completely innocent at light and not at all threatening. There were a subtle undertone to it, something mysterious and dangerous, but the item itself did not hint at anything out of the ordinary. The boy didn't want to be touching it, or holding it. He wasn't afraid, but he didn't like it.

"Are you there?" he asked. He held the ring close to his chest, like the proximity of the item to his body would help him to hear the sarcastic biting tone that usually came from it.

"Hello?" the boy asked. There was no response. He frowned and wondered if the voice had lied to him. Perhaps it had really been residing in the rod this entire time. That item had also felt strange, abnormal.

The boy bent back towards the floor, ring clasped in his hand and lowering slowly to the ground where he would hide it once more. The voice chose then to speak out, and if frightened the boy so much he almost fell out of his bed.

"Don't you dare," the voice said.

"Don't I dare what?" the boy questioned. He was not trying to be sarcastic. He was just honestly perplexed. He did not know what he had done, and what he was now not supposed to do.

"Put me back there! I'm not some silly little trinket you can just toss around wherever! If you're going to put me anywhere, then put me _back_!"

"But there isn't any difference," the boy said. "It's cold and dark in both places. I don't get it."

"What your feeble mind is able to comprehend doesn't matter. Just put me back!" the voice said.

"No," the boy said. He was not used to saying this word. Not anymore. But he knew that he wouldn't be putting the ring back. He did not want to go in that room again. He wasn't afraid of it. But he did not want his father to know what he had done.

"It's nicer here. Don't you want someone to talk to? Aren't you lonely in that room? Don't you want to get out?" the boy asked. He thought that he would want to, if he were in the voice's position. His life now wasn't very fun, but being locked away in a golden ring could not have been either.

"I don't care about any of those things! I've been inside this ring for three millennia! I have grown past the human need for interaction! All I want it to be returned to my rightful place, so that I may one day find the person I am looking for!" the voice said. It was growing darker and angrier, and with it, so was the boy's room. It had gotten so cold that the boy was forced to dive under the cover of his cot. It did not help much, but it made him feel protected from the voice's wrath. He did not know if the voice could possibly hurt him.

"I'll put you back! Just stop!" the boy said. He didn't think it would work. But curiously enough, it did. Whatever the voice had been doing, it stopped. The ring sparkled curiously up from the floor where he'd dropped it. The boy bent slowly to pick it up; almost afraid that something would happen when he touched it.

"Who are you looking for?" he asked. The ring did not feel any different in his hands now. He almost could not even sense the presence of the voice.

"A man who made me into this. Or a host that I can use," the voice answered finally. The boy crinkled his nose, because again, he didn't understand. He didn't like feeling so stupid! He knew that he was smart, but the voice was just being like this on purpose! It wasn't fair!

"Who put you in there?" the boy asked again.

"A Pharaoh from a long time ago," the voice said. The boy nodded. His anger was calmed somewhat. This he understood.

"I'm also down here because of a Pharaoh. I'm a Tomb Keeper. We've been down here for hundreds of years now! Sometimes I want to leave and see the outside, but my father says I can't. My sister says it's our job to wait down here for the Pharaoh to return," the boy said. The voice did that chuckling thing again. The boy thought that it was happy. The air down the hallway felt warmer than it had before.

"Then you'll be waiting for a very long time, won't you? You're waiting for the same man I am, and I haven't found him for as long as I've lived," the voice said.

"What are you going to do when you find him?" the boy asked. His hand was clutching tightly onto the ring now without his knowledge. The surface of it was growing hot under his hand. His eyes were wide in the darkness of the hall, but not because he couldn't see. He was excited. Excited in the same way he got whenever he thought about going outside and seeing the same place that had such wonderful things like photographs.

"I'm going to kill him," the voice said. This should have startled the boy, but it didn't. He'd never thought about death before. He knew that if he was not careful and one of the poisonous snakes down here bit him, he would die, but the thought was a sort of far away thing told to him by his brother and sister. Death seemed like a far away thing. Murder seemed even further. But now it was in his head, dancing around just like the voice, cruel and thin and cold and laughing.

"Can you do that?" the boy asked.

"I can," the voice said.

The boy dreamt about that now when he slept in his room. He would huddle under his covers and remember how sure the cold voice of the spirit had sounded. He'd never thought about hurting or killing anything before, except maybe the bugs that liked to get in his room, because he hated those. He thought that he should be scared that he was thinking about it now, but he wasn't.

The Pharaoh had hurt the spirit. The Pharaoh had hurt his family too, hadn't he? The boy wanted to go outside. He had longed to go outside since he'd first learned that there was something out there beyond their hole in the ground. He wanted to see the sky that he sometimes caught a glimpse of through the hole in the ceiling. He wanted to feel the wind on his cheek, and see all the animals and people that were out there. But he couldn't, because he had to wait for the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh had told him and his family to stay down here. The spirit said that they would be waiting for a long time, that the Pharaoh wasn't coming back.

Maybe the Pharaoh deserved to die then.

"What did he do to you?" the boy asked.

"Oh, you again. It's been a month or so, has it? I'm afraid I'm not so good with time anymore. It's all become meaningless," the voice said.

It had actually been about two months, the boy thought, but he wasn't going to tell that to the voice. He didn't want it to get mad, and he wasn't so good with time himself. There wasn't much of a point in paying attention to it when there wasn't anything to look forward to.

The boy had wanted to come sooner, but his father had only now left the tomb. Ever since his last conversation, the voice had been on the boy's mind almost constantly. There spirit inside the ring was old. He had to know tons of information! And more importantly than that, he knew about the Pharaoh.

"What meaningless thing was it you wanted to know now?" the voice asked.

"What did the Pharaoh do to you? How did he turn you into that?" the boy asked. The question had been on his mind the moment the voice had mentioned it. It felt like he _needed_ to know why the voice hated the Pharaoh so much. Why it wanted to kill him.

The voice did not speak for a long time. The boy thought he might have said something wrong. He didn't _think_ he had said something wrong, but he didn't know as much as the voice did, so maybe he had, but the room didn't seem to be getting colder like it had the last time he'd made the voice angry.

"There are actually seven of the golden items you see here. The Ring, the Rod, The Necklace, the Puzzle, the Eye, the Key, and the Scales. They are imbued with powerful magic, and anyone who collects all seven of them will be granted unlimited power. To create such powerful artifacts, the lives of one hundred innocent souls were destroyed, and made into these items," the voice said finally. The boy's eyes widened.

"Were you one of them? Did the Pharaoh kill you? Is that what happened and why I can hear you?" he asked.

"No," the voice said. "I was a thief who tried to collect all seven items to destroy the Pharaoh, but I failed. I was sealed inside this ring as punishment, as was the soul of the Pharaoh."

"But…" the boy said. He didn't understand again. He didn't think the voice was telling him everything. Not all of it made sense. Why was the Pharaoh sealed within the items? And how could the voice kill him if it was true that he was?

"The reason why doesn't matter," the voice said. The boy blinked and paid attention. "What matters is that I _will_ kill him. Even if it takes another millennia or two."

"I want to kill him to! It's his fault that I'm down here!" the boy said. The voice laughed and the boy frowned. It wasn't funny! He _did_ want to kill the Pharaoh!

"You're still far too young. Go run away and leave it to the grown ups," the voice said. The boy bunched his fists and tried to glare. He was being made fun of. He hated it! His sister and brother always did it too! They didn't like to tell him things because they said he was too young, but he wasn't! He'd thought that the voice had at least seen that!

"I hate you!" the boy said. He screamed it and hoped that it hurt the voice. Then he ran from the room. He still heard the voice's chilly laughter in his head when he was gone, flying around and bumping off the sides of his skull.

The boy did not return to the forbidden room for a while. It wasn't that he didn't want to, because he did. But he wanted to find out some way to show the voice that it was wrong. He wanted to show that he was old enough to help, and that he could do whatever he wanted! In the end, the only way he thought that he could do this was to go back and prove the voice wrong.

"Is the Pharaoh one of the monsters you talked about?" the boy asked. He was rather happy about this question. He thought that if he could show the spirit in the ring that he understood what it had talked about before, he could make it stop looking down on him.

"You could say that…" the voice said. "He is certainly a monster to some, though not quite the kind I had in mind."

"But he's still a monster," the boy said. He wanted to make sure of this fact. He wanted to show that he was right and knew what he was talking about. "He's a monster and he needs to be stopped. That's why you're going to kill him. Because he's the bad guy and you're the good guy."

The voice laughed again, harsh and loud, but it wasn't a cold laugh. It was a warm laugh, and the boy thought that the whole room responded to it by growing warmer itself. It was an amused laugh, definitely because he had said something silly, but the boy did not mind this time. He thought it was okay if he made the voice laugh.

"How old are you?" the voice asked curiously.

"Nine," the boy said. "Almost ten."

"I remember when I was that age," the voice said. "I was like you for a time being. I thought people were only good or bad. I thought I was too old to believe in monsters. But then I found out that life wasn't quite how I'd thought it was."

"What happened?" the boy asked. He was mesmerized.

"The Pharaoh killed my family. One hundred innocent souls," the voice said. It did not sound sad. It did not sound like anything. But the boy understood. He knew what the voice had meant about monsters. The Pharaoh was a monster. He had hurt the voice and he had hurt the boy's family. The Pharaoh was a monster and he needed to be killed.

"He needs to be stopped," the boy said. The voice said nothing, but it didn't need to. The boy could almost see it nodding. In his head, it took the form of a powerful male with skin as tan as his own, and short hair the color of the moon on the outside world. A scar ran down his eye and somehow it meant everything the voice had said about evil and good and monsters.

"He needs to be killed," the boy said, and again the voice nodded in his mind.

"We'll kill the Pharaoh." Another nod. And then—

"Blasphemy."

The room went cold almost immediately. It alerted the boy to the presence of another before anything else did. He heard the voice that had sounded last, but he was so caught up with the voice that he heard in his head that he did not recognize it as his father's until he turned around and saw the man.

He did not try to say a word. He was young, but he was smart and he knew his father well to know that any words he could utter would only make things worse. He'd been caught. His father had found him in the room he was forbidden to enter, hands touching the cool gold of the ring as he talked to the spirit within it. That voice was curiously quiet now, and the boy wondered if it was because his father would be able to hear it if it were to talk.

His father grabbed his arm and wrenched him away from the stone table that held the items. It hurt, but the boy did not cry out. He expected his father to lead him out of the room and punish him, and he was terrified but he was ready for it. His father did not do that. The boy did not utter a word until the man grabbed the golden ring and held it in his own large hands.

"Let it go!" the boy said. His own words surprised him. He was not expecting to say them. But he was still feeling the frigid chill of the room, and he _knew_ it was coming from the ring and he knew it was not because the voice was angry but because it didn't want to be held in the boy's father's hand any more than the boy wanted it to.

"You have disobeyed me. I told you not to go in here," the boy's father said.

"I don't care! Let it go! It doesn't belong with you!" the boy said. His father chuckled in a low way that was almost like the voice's chuckle, but too different. It was scary, much scarier. He didn't like it and it made him want to run away. But he couldn't run, not without the ring!

"My poor, stupid little son. Do you really think you can tell me what to do?" the boy's father asked.

"Let it go!" the boy said again. His father's face hardened in a way that made the boy shiver and the room grow colder.

"I'll let it go all right. I'll send it away to a place where it will never be able to poison your mind again with such traitorous words," the boy's father said.

His stride was long and powerful and the boy found that he could not keep up. The boy tried running, but the halls were not lit and he could not help but to stumble and fall in his hurry. He could not hear the voice in his mind but he imagined that he could see it again. It was not afraid like he was, but it was trying to get away and it could not. The boy reached his hand out to help and wasn't able to.

He did not remember being bitten, but he knew that he felt pain suddenly, and that his body was starting to not work and that he could not keep moving. His father was in front of him, laughing that terrible laugh that was like the voice's but was not, and then the golden glint of the ring was gone. The boy's vision was fading and he could not remember what his father had done with it. One moment it had been there and the next it had not.

"No! Give it back! Give it back!" the boy said. The voice from the ring had _understood_. The voice had _known_ things. The voice had spoken of wondrous things that made the boy's mind race and his heart tell him to go out and do something. He did not want it gone. He could not have it gone.

His father was laughing and he sounded awful and strange and inhuman. His father was close to him and his deep eyes were constricted and tiny and full of something the boy didn't like to see. His father was picking him up because the boy could not walk anymore himself. His father's skin felt scaly and rough and all wrong. His father was all wrong. His father's laugh was hoarse and gravelly and his father's tongue was forked like a monster's.

The boy did not know what had happened to the ring. He went looking for it when he'd recovered from the snake's poison, but he was unable to ever find it. The found the key to the forbidden room and went into it to see if it had perhaps been returned to its rightful place, but it had not. The voice and the ring were gone.

A month later, when he turned ten, the boy was given another reason to hate the Pharaoh. His father had laughed and grinned the entire length of the time the knife had slid into the boy's skin and he had screamed. The Pharaoh and his father were monsters. The Pharaoh and his father needed to be killed. Monsters needed to be killed. The world should not have such monsters in it. Monsters who would kill innocent people and harm an innocent child. The boy thought that maybe it was his destiny. And he wasn't supposed to run away from his destiny.

When he dropped the golden rod, it landed in a puddle of wet blood. The boy did not pay it any mind. His sister and brother were unconscious and his father certainly wasn't going anywhere. The rod would be there when he returned for it. He was its master, after all.

The boy headed to the door he had seen his father leave from. The door that lead to the outside world. He swung it open and closed his eyes as the bright light blinded him. Slowly, he opened his eyes and took in the endless stretch of sand and blue sky around him. The wind blew by him and shifted the parts of his hair that were not wet down by liquid. The giggle started quietly. It spread through the boy like the warmth of a fire in a cold room, and then the boy was laughing in a way that reminded him of something, of someone. He looked to the sky and grinned in the same manner of a person he had envisioned in his head. Tomorrow was another day, and he was going to accept his destiny.

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><p>I honestly thought I had something to say down here. I suppose I do not! Actually, it was a bit hard writing Marik's father as I've talked about him a bit but never written him as a character before, so that was something new. Yeah that's it. I have nothing else to day. Okay! So I will hopefully get chapter twenty-nine up next Friday, and then we'll only have one more chapter left! So excited! So until then, remember to review! Thanks!<p> 


	29. And Sunday Comes Afterwards

I don't like this chapter at all. Not at all. It's a completely different idea than what I'd originally had planned for it, and when I first got it in my head and started typing it, it was horribly sad and I felt like it had wonderful potential, but I don't know where that went to. It's a great idea, but I just could have done it a lot better. So I apologize for that, but hopefully it will still be somewhat good.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or the song "Friday." Both are owned by their respective owners, and both owners are not me.

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><p>Chapter Twenty-Nine: And Sunday Comes After… Wards<p>

Bakura hated growing old. He hated feeling the way his host's body would gradually lose its strength until eventually it lost the will to live completely. All that was left after that stage was death, and Bakura hated to die. Dying was yet another reminder that he'd _lost_. It wasn't losing to the Pharaoh, which he hated more than anything, but it was losing another host, losing more years, losing another chance to finally take the revenge he'd waited so long for.

He'd willingly let himself grow old and die only once. As his life had been cut rather short when he'd had a body of his own, he'd wanted to know what happened to a being that had lived all its years. So Bakura had reminded in the body of one of his first hosts instead of leaving it as he usually did, and experienced firsthand all the joys of growing old. He hated it. It wasn't something that he wanted to ever do again. He could deal with inhabiting a host who accidentally killed him or herself, but growing old was the worst.

The body of his current host was reaching seventy. It disgusted Bakura. Every day he woke up and felt how weak his body had become and longed to just retreat into his ring and force his host to cast the item aside so he could remain in peace. Every day he was tempted but did not do so. He had made a promise, and while he was a liar and a thief and had never been so concerned with keeping his word before, this time it counted. This time he was needed.

It was disgusting to watch another person grow old. It was loathesome to watch their body shrivel and their mind slowly rot. It was even more so when he could remember how that person used to be. When he stopped and watched the body decay in his mind. It made him sick. It made him want to leave even more than the thought of his own body's slow death, but it was also the same thing that kept him right where he was. Marik could hardly take care of himself anymore.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise, when the man's once-healthy mind started to go. After all, Marik came from a line of family with mental problems and had suffered his own at a fairly young age. He'd gotten better, but had only stayed better until he'd reached the age of fifty or so. Then the delusions had crept in. They'd been small things at first, or minor confusions, and Bakura had hardly cared. It might have disturbed him if he'd been a normal human, but he was not. What did it matter to him if Marik thought every now and then that he was being watched? If it had just been that, Bakura might have left this body a long time ago.

Marik meant something to him. Marik had always meant something to him. Bakura had never figured out what exactly that something was, because he had never cared enough to define it. He didn't want it to be the "love" that humans cherished so much. He had tried to fight against it once, but had failed spectacularly and since then concentrated his efforts on other areas. If this something meant that Marik would constantly be by his side, then fine, there were worse things in life. He did not mind Marik's company, and though the male had never quite returned to his previous evil ways, he was still just as cunning and manipulative, and Bakura found his mind useful. When that mind started to deteriorate, Bakura should have fled as quickly as he could have.

If it had happened about ten years earlier, he might have.

While he acknowledged that he did feel something for Marik, at the age of forty, that something still hadn't been all that important to Bakura. He'd been in Ryou's body for a little over twenty years by then, and had known Marik and had the other by his side for the same amount of time. To a human, it was a long time. To Bakura, it was the blink of an eye. He was not too proud to admit that he enjoyed the companionship. However, if Marik had begun to lose his mind at that age, Bakura would have left easily enough. He liked Marik because he was useful. While he couldn't be called useless when his memory started going, he certainly wasn't ever as helpful as he'd been at a younger age. But before Bakura could know what would happen to Marik's mind, he died.

He wasn't quite sure what killed Ryou. He didn't like dying. He never had. He didn't like to remember dying, and so he didn't bother to retain the information. It had been a cold winter and his pathetic former host's body had caught pneumonia. That may or may not have been the cause, but when Ryou died, Bakura was locked away again in his Ring. A person at the hospital Ryou was treated at had stolen the Ring when Ryou died, and for six years Bakura had to search for a new host.

He'd been irritated that someone had not only dared to steal the Ring, but that he had no idea where he'd been taken to. The Pharaoh was in Domino, and _Marik_ was in Domino, and that something had been strong enough that Bakura had not wanted to be separated from Marik. Had he been in possession of a body, he would have destroyed the amateur thief and sent his soul to the Shadow Realm for what he'd done. But Bakura hadn't had a body, and so he'd been rather limited in what he was able to accomplish. He hadn't been able to accomplish much of anything at all. Without a host whose mind was accessible to him, there was very little he could do as just a spirit.

So he'd remained in his Ring and planned. Bakura had never been hopeful of anything. He'd always known that his path would be difficult, so he hadn't thought that the possibility for him to return to Domino in time for the city to still matter would exist. He planned different ways of killing the Pharaoh. But it had been difficult that time, because the something he had with Marik had kept him from forgetting the blonde. He spent more time thinking about Marik than he did the Pharaoh during his first four years locked in the Ring.

After those years, he didn't need to think about Marik any more. Marik found him. That something had been strong enough that, after the Ring had been stolen, Marik had trailed the thief who'd taken it and followed him and the Ring for four years until he'd held the gold in his hands. Bakura could remember that the warmth of Marik holding his ring was different from the warth of anyone else who'd held it. That warmth made the something grow before he was even aware of it. He realized that he didn't want to be separated from Marik. He realized that he didn't think he _could_ be separated from Marik. Marik had become something that mattered to him as much as his revenge did, and the fact that the other male had spent four years tracking him down meant that Bakura mattered as well.

The next two years had been spent searching for a new host. He needed one around the same age as Marik. He did not want there to be a huge age gap between them. That made things difficult. In the end, he was not sure how appropriate his new host was, but Marik assured him that it did not matter. Bakura was Bakura regardless of the body he was in. That had made Bakura feel nice in a way he hadn't ever before.

After that, there had been no chance that he would leave Marik's side. The something bound them together strongly. He didn't even try to break it, and he couldn't forget about it either. Even though Marik's mind separated itself from reality more and more with each passing day, even though Bakura hated the way his host's bones protested every time he stood after sitting too long, Bakura wasn't going anywhere. He couldn't anymore. But that didn't mean he had to like it.

He despised it more than anything. He had never made any kind of promise to Marik that he would not leave his side, and he knew that on a good day the other male would understand if he did. Bakura was not human. Bakura had not been human for a very long time. He hated to see the weakness of human bodies and of human minds that broke so easily, and there could be no situation more abhorrent to him than the one he found himself in now. He wished that he could just leave, but Marik had somehow wormed his way into Bakura's mind and the spirit could not get him out.

He hated seeing what Marik had become of late. He hated that the man really didn't have the motivation to do anything on his own anymore. Bakura was no longer a lover so much as a caretaker. It would have been easier to do if he'd had a younger body, but he would not leave in search of one. Doing so might take time, and Marik could hurt himself while Bakura was gone.

But it wasn't just that. The something that kept him here exhibited a moronic sense of sentimentality and wished to remain in the same body. Marik had known it the longest, and they were close to the same age. There was a practical reason behind the decision as well, but it wasn't the foremost reason for not switching over to a new host. On his worst days, Marik couldn't even recognize him anymore. Bakura did not want to switch hosts and scare the other too much. The something told him that he did not want to risk the chance of Marik never again recognizing him.

It all would have been so much easier if Marik were like him. If Marik were like him, then none of this would have to matter, because they both could just find new hosts, and Marik's mind would have never had the chance to decay as it had now. Marik would have been just as perfect as he was when Bakura had first met him. It would be so easy if it were able to happen, but a part of Bakura thought that if things were like that and Marik was just the same as he, this something would never have happened. The only other person who was able to understand anything close to Bakura's life was the very man he wanted to kill. He didn't want Marik to have to die, but he didn't want to hate Marik either.

So he was stuck. He was stuck in this body, stuck taking care of Marik like he were a child, stuck being the only one of the two of them with a clear memory of how things used to be, stuck doing nothing with his time but waiting to die until Marik died first. He hoped that Marik died first. He didn't want to think about it, but the thought of dying before Marik unsettled him. The other male couldn't take care of himself without assistance anymore; he lacked the ability to do so. He had to be the first to die.

But Bakura didn't want that either. He didn't want to see Marik die. Marik was a part of his life and had been for over fifty years now. Marik was important to him. Even now, when Marik no longer knew what he was doing, or where he was half the time, Marik was still important. Marik would always be important. Hundreds of years after his body had decayed completely and only his bones were left, Bakura did not doubt that Marik would still be important to him. He didn't want to leave before the other, but he didn't want him to leave either.

It would have been better, Bakura thought, if they had just never met. He hated the days where Marik could not remember him, but even worse were the days that he could. The days when Bakura thought he could see a little bit of the old Marik in those lilac eyes. They had lost the majority of their shine and were glazed with daydreams way too much now, but they were still easily the most beautiful part of Marik, even now. He blinked himself when he realized those eyes were on him.

"Bakura," Marik said. He smiled. He was always smiling in that vague sort of unrealizing way. He smiled when he drifted. He smiled when he looked out the window. He smiled when he thought Bakura was the electrician. "You look different."

"Ryou's body died, remember?"

"Oh yes."

Except he didn't remember, not completely. He smiled and nodded like he did, but Bakura could see the near permanent confusion that resided in those eyes. Marik didn't remember anything anymore. On days like this he could remember a lot, but there were always parts that he couldn't. He hardly ever remembered that Bakura had found a new body a long time ago. It struck the spirit as the cruelest part of everything, because it was Marik's very insistence on helping him to find that new body that had made the something grow and kept Bakura here even now. Were he a human, he might have cried. All that did happen was for his scowl to deepen slightly.

"It's nice out today. We should go outside," Marik said. He was looking out the window again. Bakura did not respond. It was a stupid suggestion. He hated to move around in this old body more than he needed to, and the troubles Marik could get into out there were limitless. But more than that, Bakura did not know if Marik was talking to him or not. He had used the plural "we", but it meant nothing. More often than not Marik used the plural when talking to himself. Sometimes Bakura overheard him talking to the yami he had not had in years.

"Bakura," Marik said.

"Yes, Marik," Bakura said.

"Sometimes we think…" Bakura waited. He didn't think the sentence would be finished. It often wasn't. Sometimes the other just forgot his train of thought. Other times, like now, it was likely because something else had caught his attention.

He wished Marik would just die. He didn't like to see this any more than Marik would have liked to live it. Bakura knew what it was like to be locked inside your own mind. He found himself in that state more than he was ever really alive. When he'd first been sealed into the Ring, it had almost driven him crazy. But he'd had his revenge to cling to, and he'd grown used to the solitutde. He knew what it was like for Marik now, and he knew that Marik would have rather he be dead as well.

Sometimes he thought about killing Marik himself, but… he was never able to do it. He wanted to, and he knew that Marik would have wanted him to, but whenever he tried, the area where his heart may have been hurt, and the something tightened around him and he would always fall to his knees beside the bed and gasp and shudder. Marik would wake up then and either scream because he'd somehow gotten it into his mind that Bakura was his father, or he would carefully gather Bakura up in his arms and comfort him. It might have been nice if Marik knew who he was when he did it, but he usually did not. It left a bitter taste in Bakura's mouth and taunted him that he could not do what he should have been able to do.

"Bakura?" Marik asked.

"Yes, Marik."

"It's nice, isn't it?" Marik looked at him again and he smiled. His face was wrinkled and old and perpetually confused, but for a moment that smile was almost the grin he'd worn when he'd been young. It hurt.

"Yes, Marik. It's nice," Bakura said. He didn't know if Marik was talking about something outside, or the thought had had tried to complete and failed to. He didn't have the slightest clue what was going on inside Marik's head right now. He hadn't known for several years now. He hated this. There was nothing nice about it at all. There was only pain and hurt and rot, and he hated it. He hated to be human. He hated humans. He wanted his simple existence as a spirit back, but he did not know how many more years he would have to suffer through until he reached it. He wondered if this was a punishment for something. It was bullshit if it was, and bullshit if it wasn't. He didn't know a single thing, but he knew that this was not nice.

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><p>Okay. So. Important stuffs here about the last chapter. First, it will not be posted next week! You'll have to wait an extra week to see it. This is for a reason! Basically I want to thankreward my constant readers/reviewers. So this is what we're going to do! You (my reviewers) are going to send me an idea of what you'd like to see in the next chapter! And then, no matter what it is and how crazy it may be, it will happen! I'm thinking it should be fun if a lot of people send ideas! Of course if you don't want to, you don't have to, but more is better!

Now before you all go crazy with ideas and stuff, first there are some restrictions on who is allowed to send ideas in. I appreciate all of my reviewers because you guys are the ones who make me keep updating even though I might get bored with a story and want to move on to something new, but I really appreciate the ones who week after week send me reviews and give me feedback, and these are the people I want to thank. So, you can only send me an idea if you've been a constant reviewer. This does not mean that you had to have reviewed like, every single chapter, because honestly, I don't think a single person has done that. If you've reviewed a few of them, then you are eligible! Now, if you feel like that isn't quite fair because hey, maybe you've only reviewed like two chapters, but they were really good reviews, then you are eligible as well! Basically I'm accepting ideas from people who haven't just reviewed saying "I like your story please update." Because I like hearing that, I do, but actual feedback is more important to me. So I don't mean any offense to anyone, but some people just will not be able to send in ideas. Sorry!

The period for sending ideas in will end next Friday. After that, I won't be accepting anything else because I'll need time to start actually writing the chapter. Unless your idea is like really super awesome, and then I may be able to find a spot to fit it in. So that's it then, please send your ideas! All ideas will be credited! Really though, I don't have anything actually planned for the next chapter besides this, so if I don't get anything I'm kind of screwed, and no one wants that. Feel pressured! But anyways, as always, please remember to review, and thank you!


	30. I Don't Want This Weekend To End

The final chapter! Finally! Yes it is very late. Yes it is technically no longer Friday for me because it's about 3:30 in the morning, but you know what, I didn't want to wait another week. I feel like the ending of this chapter is rushed because well, I rushed it. I've been busy, very busy, and I work a lot, expecially on Friday, so I really didn't have any time to write. So I tried my hardest to get this finished before I went to bed, and I did! There are probably a plethora of mistakes that I will fix tomorrow when I have the time after I get off work. A big thanks to **nihaomuse** for the idea of the identity misconceptions, i**Panda16** for the haunted house bit, **Anamique4** for the part with the pelican, and my roommate for this first section here! I was talking to her about the last chapter and she wanted to have me write something in there. The way I've chosen to write about the ideas you all had probably isn't the exact way you wanted it done, but I hope I've done it well all the same! Thank you so much!

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or the song "Friday."

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><p>Chapter Thirty: I Don't Want This Weekend To End<p>

It all ended in a flash of light. A really fucking bright flash of light, which made the entire situation that much more annoying.

Bakura had beaten the Pharaoh. Bakura had finally beaten the Pharaoh. Bakura had not only kicked the Pharaoh's skinny ass, but he had collected all seven of the Sennen Items and was about ready to put them into the stone slab and gain all of the promised power. Marik stood beside him, having made his true loyalties clear right when it would hurt the most: right after Bakura had defeated the Pharaoh and shone that friendship and all that shit he was constantly spewing meant nothing in the face of true evil and great power.

He'd put the Scales in first. He didn't give a damn about whether his heart was light enough for a feather to outweigh it; he had infinite power now, and he'd always been more or less immortal. Next went the Key, because as far as that Item went, he'd never really cared much for peering into the minds of others. Then the Eye, followed by the Necklace. Next went the Rod. Marik gave it a peculiar look as it went, but Bakura was too busy basking in his glory to give a damn. Then came the Puzzle. He held it in his hands and grinned at the way his face reflected in its golden surface. Into the stone niche it went. Behind him, the Pharaoh sort of made a choked gasping noise, and Bakura didn't pay any attention to that either.

Lastly he took off his Ring. He immediately felt the connection between himself and his host waver. But the Ring was close and as long as he concentrated he could keep himself in this body. He put the Ring into the stone and that was when a bright flash of light burst forth from the stone. He heard the Pharaoh scream for him not to, but by that time it was already too late.

00000

Bakura woke up and had no idea where the hell he was. That didn't bother him that much. He didn't want to say that he was used to it, but when you lived as a spirit stuck inside a golden magical Ring for so many years, yeah, you kind of got used to not knowing where the hell you were or where the hell you'd end up. What bothered him was that he was hungry.

On any other occasion, he would have let his host take over. Feeding the body he possessed was time-consuming and irritating. He hated sitting around and eating knowing that he could have been better spending his time out on the street and plotting evil plots. Ryou also happened to be the better cook, and the foods he made we more likely to be edible than anything Bakura could come up with. But he couldn't allow his host to take over the body just now. He needed to know where he was and what had happened, first.

He'd gathered all of the Sennen Items and placed them into the stone tablet. He was _supposed_ to have been given ultimate power. There had been a flash of blinding light, and then… He'd woken up in what appeared to be the suburbs of Domino? Not that anything looked familiar if he was, in fact, still in Domino. There were shops and people all around him, but nothing looked familiar. In fact, the area looked much nicer than Domino, if anything. The shops were fancy and new and the people passing by walked with smiles on their faces. Bakura didn't like it. It was creepy.

He hurriedly moved from the middle of the street to a sidewalk. He bumped into someone and the person didn't say anything, just smiled as he passed. Bakura snarled. The man did not react.

He ignored this and any and all other senses that told him this was decidedly strange and not at all the norm and kept walking. He kept his eyes peeled for a store where he could get some food and spotted a bakery. Perfect. He walked into the store casually and scoped it out.

It was a small shop, probably the sort that had been in the family for ages. It was all made from a tasteful dark wood that Bakura might appreciate under normal circumstances if he weren't so damn hungry at the moment. All he really paid attention to were the baked goods behind the see-through counter. And the fact that there was not a person in sight. This place was just asking to experience a robbery.

So Bakura snuck around the counter and opened up the cash register with embarrassing ease and helped himself to all the money that was inside of it. Then he slid open the glass containing all of those delectable sweets. There were cookies, donuts, biscuits, pastries, things he wasn't even quite sure what they were, but his eyes zoomed in on the creampuffs. He wanted those creampuffs. He wanted them and he wanted them now. So he grabbed them, stuffed one into his mouth, and scurried on out.

After all of the creampuffs had been consumed in a not-so-timely manner and Bakura had time to reminisce on the main problem of where the hell was he, his mind wandered back to those creampuffs. They were his host's favorite snack, and he'd always hated them in the past. They were messy and too sweet. These ones had also been messy and far too sweet, but even now as he thought about them, he wanted another. Even more strange. He didn't like this. He didn't like this at all.

00000

Bakura found fairly quickly that he was unable to leave whatever city it was that he happened to be stuck in. It wasn't because he didn't know where he was, or where he was going. It wasn't because anyone was keeping him here. It wasn't because he wanted to stay here. It was because he could not get the delectable taste of those creampuffs out of his head.

He had remained in the city for the rest of the day yesterday, and decided he would leave it the following morning. On that morning he woke up, attempted to leave, and found that he could not. There was no physical force keeping him from leaving, but he was held back all the same. He couldn't _not_ think about the pastries, no matter how much he tried. He'd found that he had to go back.

So Bakura had gone back to the store that sold them, seen that the owner was again not around anywhere, grabbed some of the creampuffs and ran off. He'd gobbled them all as quickly as he could. They were flakey, warm and filled with a delicate cream. He couldn't get enough of them. He was in love.

So the thief found himself returning to the scene of the crime again. And again. After every time he stole from the small shop, Bakura scolded himself and told himself that he needed to leave. He couldn't keep doing this. He had a plan and his plan was to find out what the hell had happened to the Sennen Items and the power he was supposed to have gained when he'd gathered them all together. Yet whenever ha even thought about leaving, he felt a phantom ache in his stomach that he just knew wouldn't go away until he ate another one of those creampuffs. He had to have them. He couldn't leave. It was an addiction now, and addictions were hard things to break.

Today, his third day being in this city, was so far a bit different than the others. This time there was a person walking around inside the store that sold the succulent creampuffs. Bakura couldn't see the figure clearly through the glass, but he didn't think it would matter much. He had money. It was all money that he'd stolen from the shop's own register, but it was money all the same and he could use it to purchase more of the baked goods he couldn't get enough of. He didn't like paying for things he could easily steal, but the creampuffs were worth it. His stomach growled in agreement.

Bakura walked into the shop, heard the bell above the door ring as he opened it. The person who was working inside was bent behind the counter. The figure rose and Bakura figured that answered one of his questions. Or it would have answered the question had he had the question in the first place and cared for it to be answered.

"You!" Marik yelled.

"Hello," Bakura replied, nonplussed. Marik raised his hand and pointed a finger threateningly in Bakura's direction.

"You! You, you—!"

"Yes, me," Bakura continued, grinning now. Marik glared. Bakura smiled. Marik was wearing a horribly dirty apron over what might have been a black tank. Bad decision, as the bits of it he could see peeking out around the edges of the apron was covered in flour. Somehow, Marik had also followed him to this unknown city and was apparently the proprietor of this shop. A very bad one at that.

"What the hell did you do? One minute we're standing in front of all seven of the Sennen Items and you're supposed to be receiving some ultimate power, and the next we're in some random-ass happytown with no exit! What went wrong?" Marik fumed.

"Why would you think I know what that flash was all about? The Pharaoh was saying something when it occurred; maybe he had something to do with it," Bakura remarked.

"Well I just figured what with you being the expert on the Items, you would know what happens when you put them all in the tablet," Marik said caustically. Oh he was pissed. Not that Bakura really minded that much. Marik was more fun when he was pissed and he was a hell of a lot sexier too.

"He probably thought of a way to sabotage me once again," Bakura sighed, putting Marik's current level of attractiveness out of his mind. Really, he should have been thinking of how he got here earlier (and where Marik had ended up for that matter as well), but the creampuffs had kept him from thinking much of anything if it didn't concern the pastries themselves.

"Well why'd he take me too? You're the one he hates," Marik pointed out. His anger was fading a bit; he was now also thinking about the current situation and more concerned with figuring it out than yelling and arguing as he was prone to do.

"That one's easy enough to answer. I've never made it a secret as to which side of the game I was playing. I've been sneaky and have kept my motives a secret, yes, but the Pharaoh and his idiotic followers have always known that I was bad. It wasn't _my_ betrayal that hit them where it hurt, was it?" Bakura mocked. Marik fell silent. Bakura had scored a point and they both knew it. He continued.

"Oh, you fooled them easily enough with your pretty words and your talk of help and redemption, but you never fooled me. I knew you'd turn to my side probably before you even did. You're evil through and through, no matter how you'd like to pretend otherwise. You lied to them and the Pharaoh doesn't like liars. So he punished you along with me."

"I didn't know that I was lying! I didn't mean to betray anyone until I actually did it!" Marik protested.

"I don't doubt it," Bakura agreed. If there was one thing he knew about his companion, it was that he was contrary in all aspects of his person. "You're still confused about where your true loyalties lie even now. You want to be good, but you just can't get used to how boring it all is, can you?" Marik's face darkened, and he'd scored again. "Though if you ever really get confused by that, feel free to ask for my assistance. I can tell you exactly the kind of person you are."

"I don't need your help with anything," Marik spat. He took a step back behind the counter and crossed his arms. Defensive movements. The conversation was apparently over. "Was there a reason you came in here, or were you just planning on stealing more of my pastries and hard-earned money?" Bakura chuckled and leaned back on the counter.

"Oh so you knew it was me then?" he questioned.

"You're the only one in this place who'd be enough of an asshole to do something like that," Marik answered sarcastically. "So hand the cash over."

"Can't. Spent it all," Bakura shrugged. A lie, but Marik didn't need to know it. And even if he did guess the truth of the matter, there was no way he could get back what Bakura wasn't planning on giving up. "You should have been more careful with your register. Every time I've come here until now there's never been anyone at the front. What have you been doing all day?"

Marik flushed. He averted his eyes, and Bakura broke his act of nonchalance to leer fiendishly at him from across the counter. "Well?"

"I was busy cooking, all right! I'm the only one who works here, so I can't spend all my time watching over the front desk if I want to have product to sell! I didn't think it would matter! You're the only one in this entire place who would have stolen from me anyways!" Marik exclaimed. He crossed his arms and jutted his hip and succeeded in looking very angry, but not in making Bakura feel very sorry for his actions. No one had ever been able to do that.

"I might be the only one who _succeeded_ in stealing from you, but I can't be the only one to try," Bakura corrected. "If someone wandered in here and was hungry enough, they would try taking those pastries too the moment they saw that there was no one at the front."

"No, I'm pretty sure that would only be you," Marik insisted. He wiped his hands off on his apron and leaned against the counter. His gaze drifted to the streets outside of the shop where people passed each other with a smile and a greeting. "Have you really paid attention to the people here? They're all so happy and nice. I don't think they've ever had an evil thought in their heads. There's no way a single one of them would steal from another person. You're the only one who would do that."

"You knew I was a thief from the moment I'd met you. I never lied about that either," Bakura argued. But his gaze too went to the streets outside. He hadn't paid it much notice before, but Marik had a point. All of the people he'd passed in this city were constantly smiling and cheerful. He hadn't seen any one of them do a single bad thing yet, besides himself.

"I didn't say you had. It was because of that certain character defect that I knew that you had wound up in this hellhole as well. The people hear are too damn happy and satisfied with their lives for it to have been anyone other than you," Marik said. Bakura grinned.

"Sounds like the complete opposite of you, hmm? So why are you still here and running a bakery at that?"

"Why are you still here?" Marik replied back. Bakura didn't say anything. He thanked the gods for small favors, like the fact that he still wasn't facing Marik so the blonde couldn't see his face heat up.

"Haven't felt like leaving yet. I wanted to get the lay of the land before making any rash decisions." Yes, that was a good enough excuse for what was really just that he couldn't stop thinking about those creampuffs long enough to actually get away.

"So then you probably haven't noticed that it's impossible," Marik commented. Bakura swiveled his head around to look at the other male. The points of Marik's mouth turned upward into a smirk. "If you'd actually tried getting out of this place, you'd have found that you can't. It's impossible. Every time I try to leave I somehow manage to wind up right back in front of this shop. If you ask the people who live here, they'll tell you that there's no way to do it. This is all there is."

Bakura laughed. Sure, he hadn't really tried leaving as of yet, but what _was_ impossible was that he wouldn't be able to if he wanted. If Marik couldn't find his way out, then it was because Marik was apparently very bad with directions. But he was the great Bakura, and nothing could keep him from doing exactly what he wanted. Marik just continued to look at him and smile.

"So you say. But I can leave whenever I want, and I'll prove it to you. For now, just give me five of those creampuffs," Bakura replied easily. The idea was ridiculous. There couldn't be a city that kept you inside of it and didn't allow you to leave.

"Five, huh? You'll lose that figure if you keep eating like that," Marik mocked, but he handed the bag on over. Bakura took it and left the store, having tired with the conversation now that he had his prize. The moment he was far enough away that he didn't think Marik could see him any longer, he dove into the bag and shoved one of the desserts into his mouth. It was incredible. He found it hard to believe that Marik could have possibly made this.

Marik, who apparently believed that this city was keeping him here and not allowing him to escape. Marik, who was an idiot. An idiot that Bakura cared a bit more about than he knew he should have, but still an idiot. Neither of them knew what had gone wrong with the Sennen Items, but Bakura sure wasn't going to stand around and bake because it was "impossible" to leave. He'd prove Marik wrong easily enough.

00000

"So what are your plans on getting out of this place?" Marik asked. The two of them were inside the small shop once more, and the scent of fresh baked goods pervaded the air and Bakura's thoughts. A fresh batch of creampuffs had just come out of the oven, and Bakura had eaten two of them already. He was trying to control himself in front of Marik, but it wasn't working that well. He could feel the blonde's eyes on him and knew that although Marik hadn't said anything about his addiction, he was being laughed at all the same.

Of late, his thoughts had mostly been surrounding those creampuffs, and a little bit surrounding the creator of them himself. He hadn't had much time to think of any escape plans at all, so Marik's question gave him a vague sense of discomfort. It was the same question he asked every time he caught Bakura in his store, and time after time the thief was more than disturbed to admit that he hadn't given it any thought at all.

"I'm working on it," he said. Marik scoffed.

"It's a good thing you're immortal, you know. If anyone else took as long as you did to come up with a plan they'd never get anywhere." Bakura frowned at his third creampuff and Marik continued talking. "I, on the other hand, am not immortal, and I would like to get out of here. So kindly work on it a little faster."

"Why do you want to leave so badly? Seems like you're living the life here," Bakura scowled, gesturing wildly to the shop. It was tiny, yes, but it was comfortable and clean and from what he could tell, one of the most popular bakeries in this city. He'd never known Marik could be so good at making food. To be fair, apparently the blonde hadn't either.

Marik had woken up in front of the store when he'd first arrived here and gone into the building to see if there was anyone who could tell him where he was. He'd found that the entire store was empty, and had been hungry enough to try to make himself food. All that had been there were ingredients for baking, so he had made some muffins. While he'd been waiting on them to finish, people had started coming into the shop and asking to buy them. Since then, having nowhere else to go and no way of getting out of this city, Marik had just remained in the shop as owner and decided to earn some money on the side.

Now Marik was glaring at him, and once again Bakura had managed to piss him off in some manner. It seemed to be happening a lot, though he really had no idea why that was. He'd just been being himself, albeit a him with a new obsession for devouring creampuffs.

"Will you just shut the hell up already? It seems like every time you open your mouth you say something to piss me off," Marik muttered sourly. He stomped on over to the small circular table Bakura was sitting at and took a seat across from him. He put his elbows up on the table and glared. "I want to leave because this place isn't real. There's no way a city like this could exist where everyone spends their entire day in happy bliss."

"Humans long for happiness," Bakura shrugged. "In this place the only thing you have to worry about is me stealing your wares."

Marik leaned in closer to him. Bakura's heart suddenly decided to beat a little faster, and Bakura glared down at it for a moment before he realized it was stupid. "And what do you want? Would you be satisfied staying in this city?" Marik questioned.

"No, of course not," Bakura scoffed. He leaned back a bit; just enough to make it still look casual while still putting some distance between them. "I want to get back so I can figure out what happened and get the power that was supposed to be mine."

"Exactly," Marik agreed. "I want to go back because my life is there. This place is nothing. So stop stuffing your face full of creampuffs already and help me think of a plan to do it!"

"I'm working on it!" Bakura repeated. Marik grinned sort of, leaned in much closer than was necessary or proper. His lips were way too close. Far too close for it to be all right at all. His heart skipped a beat and Bakura decided this was the right time to get the hell out of here. He stumbled awkwardly out of his chair, ran into the one seated behind him and nearly knocked it over. He tried not to look at Marik as he left, but he could tell just by the frigid silence that he had once again done something to anger the blonde. He nearly ran out of the store and decided that from that point on, he would figure out a way to escape on his own.

00000

Except Bakura found that he really couldn't. Somehow, without his notice, his addiction had grown too strong to resist. There were now very few moments in the day where he found himself unable to not be eating a creampuff, or thinking about eating one of them even though he knew he had more important things he should have been pondering. He wound up visiting Marik's shop during numerous points of the day. Sometimes the blonde was in, sometimes he was in the back and Bakura could steal the pastries. He tried making sure that Marik wasn't around when he visited. Since the last time he had really talked to Marik, the blonde had only gotten more hostile toward him. Bakura tried not to think about it much. He didn't think about it much. The creampuffs kept him from thinking about anything much.

He didn't know what it was about them that kept him coming back. He didn't like sweets that much. Ryou liked sweets. Ryou liked creampuffs. Bakura did not like sweet foods and he did not like creampuffs. But damn were they good.

This needed to stop. Things could not go on like this any longer. He needed to speak with Marik and find out what exactly the blonde was putting in those sweets to make them taste so good. Even if he didn't really want to necessarily _see_ Marik, this was ridiculous on all accounts.

00000

"They're baking now, so you're just going to have to wait," Marik stated when Bakura walked into the door. His eyes had immediately zoomed in at the area where the pastries normally rested, and having been caught in the action now, Bakura found himself blushing.

"What are you putting in them?" he demanded.

"Um, the normal things?" Marik stated sarcastically.

"Then how are they tasting so damn good?" Bakura demanded. "You have to be doing something! We've been stuck in this place for over a week now, I still have no idea what happened to the Sennen Items or exactly where we are, and I can't even think about leaving because I can't stop eating those damn creampuffs! You have to have put something in there! There's no other reason I would want them so badly!"

Marik started at him. Bakura slowly calmed himself and got his ragged breathing under control. He hadn't exactly planned on going into the conversation yelling, but something about Marik's person made him loose all sense of self-control. Marik continued to stare and now Bakura started to feel self-conscious, which only irritated him even more because he wasn't supposed to feel things like that.

"_That's_ why you haven't tried getting out of here?" Marik asked. "Mr. 'I'll prove to you that I can leave!' Because you can't stop eating my creampuffs?"

"It's ridiculous, I know," Bakura stated lowly. "So now answer the question. What have you put into them? I can't get them out of my head and I want to know why."

"I haven't put anything into them at all!" Marik exclaimed, suddenly laughing. "You honestly just can't stop eating them! Oh gods, that's good! That's fucking brilliant! That's the funniest thing I've heard the entire time I've been here! I've been trapped in some fucking make-believe city where everyone is happy and no one can escape all because I thought you were actually able to win against the Pharaoh! And now, not only did that plan fail because of whatever the hell happened with the Sennen Items, but _I_ can't find the exit to this place, and _you're_ too addicted to even try!"

"Shut the fuck up," Bakura scowled irritably. It was all the truth but it was the last thing he wanted to hear. Especially not coming from Marik. He didn't want to admit the truth of it, but he was starting to realize that he cared much more about how Marik thought of him than he should have.

"No! I'm not going to shut up! It's your fault! All of this is your fault! I don't know why I ever betrayed the Pharaoh and his friends when it should have been obvious that they would ultimately win in the end! Where are the Sennen Items now, Bakura? You don't have a clue! You're too fucking obsessed with these worthless creampuffs to even _try_ to find them! Meanwhile the Pharaoh is probably back in the actual world laughing at how easy that all was!" Marik yelled. His face was quickly reddening and his fists balling up to his sides. He wasn't the only one beginning to get angry. Bakura didn't take insults very well, regardless of whom the person saying them was.

"They maybe you should have stayed there with them. Led your life in complete servitude to the Pharaoh and helped him regain his memories and win against me, and then watch as he left the lot of you to finally allow his soul to rest. Then you could have moved to Japan perhaps, become good friends with the rest of the Yuugi-idiots and lived out the rest of your life doing boring mundane things like finishing school and getting a job and being a nice fucking happy person, right, Marik? Is that what you want? I bet you really do just love this place then, don't you? You can live your entire life here and be a happy idiot with a bakery," Bakura spat. He wasn't going to lie; even if Marik had stood by him at the end of the match against the Pharaoh, the fact still stood that Marik had betrayed him as well after Battle City, and it stung.

"Fuck you! You don't know me at all, and don't give me that bullshit that you do! You don't know anything about me! Just because I had a grudge against the Pharaoh doesn't mean I'm suddenly exactly like you, and we're kindred spirits or something! It doesn't mean that I wouldn't be perfectly happy living a life where I don't have to worry about my family heritage and what my surname means!" Marik yelled back.

"Bullshit!" Bakura exploded. He pounded his fists on the counter and got as close to Marik as he could with it still between them. "Bullshit! You don't spend your life cultivating that much hatred inside of you and just decide to let it all go so you can become a good person!"

"Maybe you don't," Marik said lowly. "But then you're hardly a person anymore, are you, Bakura? You're just some kind of lowly parasitic demon hampering the brilliant soul of the host you posses." The words were spoken with calm, cool venom, and as they hit him Bakura actually flinched. A sudden blinding flash of lightning coming from outside the shop masked the involuntary movement. Both males turned to face the outer world.

The sky was dark and heavy black clouds hung ominously in the sky. It hadn't started raining yet, but it couldn't be long before it did. Another blazing bolt of lightning streaked across the sky and lit up the world long enough for the two to make out the faces of the people standing on the other side of the glass window. There were dozens of glaring faces, all expressing the same hard fury that both Marik and Bakura had just moments earlier. All were looking inwards.

This… was bad. Something had gone wrong and Bakura wished he'd been paying more attention to his surroundings than Marik's words because he hadn't a clue what it was. But there were no smiles anymore. Now there were only looks Bakura was very familiar with indeed.

"We need to get out of here," he said.

"What's going on? Why are they all looking at us like that? What the hell happened?" Marik asked. He sounded worried and he had every right to be.

"Doesn't matter. We need to get out of here."

"How can you say it doesn't matter?" Marik shouted, turning on Bakura once again. But Bakura was hopping over the counter and looking for just where the back exit was. It was hard to make much of anything out with how dark it had gotten, and he hadn't ever bothered locating it before. Marik noticed he was being ignored and grabbed Bakura by his shoulders and spun him round.

"Every single day we've been stuck in here they've spent their time smiling and being nice to one another and not giving a single shit about anything that the two of us do. Does it look like they're like that now?" Marik demanded. Bakura glared and shoved him away and walked through the doorway he had finally located. The warmth of Marik's hands lingered on his shoulders, and with a scoff he turned back, grabbed the blonde, and dragged him along with him.

"I don't know what the hell happened, but I do know that we need to get out of here, so kindly cease your bitching and lead the way to the exit! You know this place better than I do," Bakura said. There was a crash behind them. The sound of glass breaking. Bakura looked at Marik again and saw that now his companion finally seemed to have gotten an idea of how bad of a situation they were stuck in here.

"This way," Marik said and took the lead.

It was dark and Marik stumbled more than a few times while trying to maneuver around the room. The storm had killed the electricity. Bakura would have laughed every time the other male swore when he bumped into something, but instead he was concentrating more on the noises of hurried footsteps coming from behind them.

"Any moment now would be great," Bakura said lowly. No point in alerting the people behind them to their location any more than Marik's stumbling was already doing. The dark worked both ways, and as long as they could get out of here without being found, then Bakura was perfectly fine with the lights out.

"I'm working on it!" Marik hissed back. He stumbled again and then yelped. Bakura stopped walking. The footsteps had gradually been increasing in volume, but he hadn't thought anyone had gotten that close to them yet. Perhaps he was wrong. He hoped he wasn't wrong.

"Let go of me! What are you even doing?" Marik demanded. _ Shit_. Bakura did grab onto Marik now, and he yanked the blonde away from whomever had taken hold of him—and right into the hands of another person. Marik complained about something as Bakura wretched himself away, apparently not yet aware of what was going on. Another hand latched onto Bakura, clawed and painful and digging into his skin. Along with it came three more.

Bakura struck out against the people holding onto him, but for every person he knocked down, two more took the first's place. This was getting out of hand. He was stumbling and tripping over the various things lying about in the room and the bodies of those he had hit. From beside him, he could tell Marik's wasn't faring much better. Slowly, the two of them were dragged back out into the main area of the shop.

It was still dark, but the strikes of lightning that cut across the dark sky like a scar helped the two to know just how thoroughly they were screwed. They were surrounded, and every single furious townperson who'd been glaring outside of that window was now jammed inside and grinning in a way that was neither happy nor comforting. This was fanatical, insane grinning and it couldn't mean that anything good was in store for them.

"What the hell? Fuck! Get the fuck off me!" Marik swore. He was still trying to fight away the arms of those who had grabbed him. Long red marks stretched down his arms from where hands had clawed and latched onto his skin. He was fighting a match he wasn't going to win, and while Bakura wasn't one to give up, he thought that it might be better to wait and see what happened in this case.

Giving up and furious, Marik turned to face Bakura once more. The hands holding onto him dragged at him but he pushed and kept his eyes locked with Bakura's own.

"This is all your fault," Marik spat. The words were hateful, harsh; almost as hurtful as the ones he'd stabbed Bakura with before. It wasn't his fault, Bakura wanted to say. He hadn't a clue that anything like this could have happened. It wasn't his fault at all, and Marik should have been able to see that, but Marik wasn't, and Bakura cared too much.

"I should have never gone over to your side. I should have helped the Pharaoh get rid of you like I was meant to! Then he would have been put to rest and my role as Tombkeeper would have been over, just like you said. And I would have been happy! Everyone would have been happy with you gone! Hell, even Ryou would have finally gotten his life back!"

The grinning people from the city were moving in closer and their outstretched fingers were gnarled and clawed like the roots of a tree ready to rake and scratch but Bakura wasn't paying attention. He was thanking the storm for the darkness it provided because he did not want Marik to see his face. He couldn't say how or why it was that the blonde's words hurt him, but they did hurt and he didn't want anyone to know of it. And he knew that the majority of what Marik was saying was born from anger and didn't matter at all, but it did. He wasn't supposed to hurt. He was a demonic parasite who ruined everything, just like Marik had said. He wasn't supposed to have a heart and it wasn't supposed to be beating as quickly and weighing as heavily as it did. But Marik wasn't finished yet.

"And now it's you're fault that I'm stuck in this place and I'm probably going to be killed by these assholes! Everything is you're fault! It you didn't exist, none of this would have happened! Everyone would have been happy!"

Was that true? Bakura didn't really give a shit about the Pharaoh and his friends, but was it true that Marik would have been? He supposed that maybe it was. And his host… Bakura never put much thought into Ryou. Ryou was his host and that was all there was to their relationship. He'd put even less thought into the idea of Ryou in regards to how others thought of him. He wasn't even sure if Ryou's friends put much thought into Ryou. He supposed they did… but Marik was not a friend of his host. Marik should not have cared at all. Yet…

Their attackers were getting closer and closer. Marik was still fighting and scratching like a caged animal, but Bakura had stopped doing much of anything. He watched the space keeping him separate from the others diminish and wondered what had happened to cause this. Could this all have possibly been from the Sennen Items? He sort of wished he had spent more time thinking about it before, but the creampuffs had clouded his mind. Funny, he didn't care about them at all now. He had something else on his mind. He wondered if he had put more thought into their situation if Marik wouldn't be as angry as he was now.

As the crazed citypeople grew closer, a flash of light not unlike the one the one that had come from the tablet with the Sennen Items issued forth. At first Bakura thought it was another strike of lightening, but the light soon grew too unearthly luminant for that to be true. It enveloped everything and Bakura had to shut his eyes to try to block it.

He felt his body move, though he was quite sure he was not moving it. He thought that maybe he had been finally caught, but it didn't seem that way. He could not hear anything at all except the steady downpour of rain. He wondered what had happened to Marik. But thinking about Marik made him hurt in ways he didn't want to hurt. He didn't want to care at all and he shouldn't have cared at all, but he obviously did. And Marik didn't. Marik cared about his host. Bakura the spirit didn't seem to matter to him at all except that he continually messed things up. Perhaps, Bakura thought as the sound of rain grew louder and louder, he should just be Ryou then.

00000

Marik woke up. His head spun and the noise of rain pounded in his ears like his heartbeat. He sat up, winced at the pain in his head and his arms. Everything was too bright when he opened his eyes, so he closed them and peeked through them gradually. The light faded, and he once again didn't know where the hell he was. But he was kind of starting to get used to that by now.

Some kind of room. It was dark, so he couldn't make out much of it, but he could tell that he was definitely in a room. It was raining outside. There was a lone window in the room, and through it he could barely make out the outside world to tell where he was. He didn't think he was in the crazy happy city anymore. Though a quick look at his arms showed that he still bore the scratch marks from the not-so-happy but still crazy people that had lived there. Marik looked around again, hoping to find some kind of light switch, but instead found his companion.

Bakura was lying face down on the ground, and Marik quickly squelched any unpleasant feeling of worry that sprang up from within him as he quickly bent down to help the other male up. Bakura was all bones and angles and a lot lighter than Marik had thought he would be. He wondered how much and how often Bakura fed the body that he shared. Now that he thought about it, he had only ever witnessed the spirit eating those creampuffs.

In his arms, Bakura stirred. He opened his eyes slowly and for a moment they were confused and open. Then they narrowed, became sharp and deadly like how Marik was used to seeing them and… changed again. All the evil in those chocolate orbs fled in a hurry, and the confusion was back now and everything was wrong. Marik nearly dropped Bakura in his surprise.

"Ahh… Marik?" Bakura asked. Except the voice was also wrong. It wasn't rough like Bakura's and dripping in sarcasm and bitter resentment. It was too sweet, too honeyed and too soft. Now that he thought about it, everything about Bakura was wrong. He was all too soft. Even his hair was no longer pointing up in that sharply spiked manner it had, but lying tamely against his scalp, still tangled and a bit messed up, but not Bakura. This wasn't Bakura.

"Yeah," Marik said. He knew it wasn't Bakura but he still wasn't quite sure who this was yet. He had met Ryou on occasion, but not enough to identify him the way he knew Bakura.

"Where are we? What happened?" the man asked again, softly and quiet and completely wrong.

It had to be Ryou. It wasn't Bakura, and as far as he knew there weren't any other strange spirits that inhabited the poor boy's body. But it didn't seem like Ryou either. Perhaps it was just because it was dark, he was still disoriented and he'd been expecting to see Bakura. Marik worked hard to hide his disappointment.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Marik asked carefully.

"I… don't really know," Ryou replied. "I haven't been awake for a while. Bakura, he… I think I remember that he was about to fight against the Pharaoh." Ryou sounded upset with himself. Marik wanted to sigh. He hated having to comfort other people, especially because he was so bad at it.

"Well he did fight against the Pharaoh, and he won." Ryou nodded slowly. "Bakura gathered together all of the Sennen Items and was supposed to get some kind of power, but instead the two of us just wound up being transported to this weirdass city where everyone was happy, right up until they tried to kill the two of us. Then there was another bright flash of light, and we wound up here. Wherever here is," Marik explained shortly. He looked around the room again, trying to make out anything that was in it. He couldn't. It was too dark to even try. He could barely make out the form of Ryou still being supported in his arms. Now that he thought about it, why was Ryou still in his arms.

"I see," Ryou mused. "We should probably work to figure that out first then, shouldn't we?" A good idea, but first Ryou still needed to move. Marik fidgeted around to give the boy the clue, and Ryou apparently finally got it but took his sweet time in leaving. It was unconsciously annoying and it irritated Marik in the same way that usually every action taken by Bakura irritated him. That irritance made him wish Bakura was here instead, and in turn that thought pissed him off even more. He didn't want Bakura here. He didn't _need_ Bakura here. Bakura was the reason everything had gone wrong. He was supposed to be _happy_ that Bakura wasn't here.

Ryou rose to his feet with a grace that Marik hadn't known he possessed. He'd always sort of assumed that the original owner of the shared body was a clumsy, timid boy, though right now he was moving with a fluid stealth that Marik would have expected to see Bakura employ. And again he was thinking about Bakura. Marik told himself to stop thinking about Bakura because Bakura wasn't here and this was Ryou, even though Ryou maneuvered around the very dark room without stumbling or tripping and with such poise that it was nearly impossible _not_ to think of Bakura.

But then Ryou located the light switch and Marik wasn't thinking about much of anything because the light was blinding and he had to shield his eyes.

He opened them slowly and finally got his first real look at the room he found himself in. A bare light bulb hung from the ceiling. It moved slowly back and forth and cast the light around the room and the clutter in it in slow lazy luminous arcs, creating shadows that lengthened and then fled away as the light came round once more. The floor was nearly covered with miscellaneous things here and there, and Marik again wondered how the hell Ryou had gotten around so easily in the dark.

He could make out more chairs than could ever be needed in a single room, all rickety and half broken and shoved into piles that looked like they would fall over if someone breathed too hard. On top of those chairs and in separate piles of their own were haggard looking ragged clothes, tossed about helter-skelter in any which way and hanging like dead branches on a tree, ugly and shameful. Marik crinkled his nose instinctively, though he couldn't smell anything coming from them. There was a tarnished lamp in the corner, but it was broken and bent. Several books rested in another. Their spines were broken and their covers were dirty and soiled. Some scattered pages lie on the floor, yellowed and crinkled. On the floor was a threadbare rug that _did_ have a certain smell to it, and Marik jumped off it with a grimace when he realized he was sitting on it.

"So we've wound up in a dump, by the looks of it," he said dryly. Ryou hummed.

"We should see what the rest of the house looks like," he said. Ah, so they were in a house now, were they? It made as much sense as anything else, Marik supposed.

The rest of the house (for it was a house) was despairingly similar to the first room they'd woken up in. Random piles of trash littered the floor and whatever table space there was available. These piles were mainly composed of old broken bits of furniture, but there were more oddities such as shattered light bulbs, blown out and very old television sets, and Marik's personal favorite, a pile of bent silverware, broken glass dishes and cups, cooking utensils and plastic containers. Why they were there, he didn't know, but they were there.

All bed coverings and chairs and couches were stained and torn. There were holes in the walls and several windows were broken. Puddles of water were forming on the floors of the rooms with the broken windows and without, as most of the ceilings were leaky. Half of the rooms were missing light bulbs, about a quarter of the ones that did have light bulbs actual worked. Fortunately, there were many old candles in the room that was supposed to be the kitchen. Ryou had found them. Marik hadn't wanted to take a single step in that room. There was an upstairs, but the stairs that led up to it were busted and neither of the two had found an alternate way of reaching the second floor.

"Well this is quite the place, isn't it?" Ryou asked.

"I suppose you could say that," Marik mumbled. It was certainly a piece of work, though at this point he was wishing he'd stayed in happytown. The conditions hadn't been quite so dirty and he'd been much more satisfied with the choice of companionship. And now he was again wondering where in the hell Bakura was, and why he hadn't shown up yet.

"Is Bakura all right in there?" Marik asked, frowning at the area where the Sennen Ring usually hung around Ryou's neck. Of course it was not there now because it was stuck with the other Sennen Items in the big rock tablet. It was a bit strange not seeing its gold glinting madly and the points of it clanging together. Ryou seemed genuinely surprised by the question, and it was the first time that Marik was truly able to identify him as Ryou.

"Yes, he's fine. Why did you want to know?" Ryou asked. Marik turned his face away sharply and inwardly cursed himself for even asking.

"He's the one who got the both of us into this mess, right? Just wanted to make sure that he was suffering through it too and hadn't somehow disappeared." Yes, that was exactly what he'd meant. Marik didn't care about the spirit in any other way at all. Actually, if there truly wasn't anything wrong with him, then why was Ryou even still here? Shouldn't Bakura have regained possession of the body by now?

"It's just like him to run and hide though, isn't it?" Marik asked. "He's leaving the two of us to figure out what to do in this pigsty while he doesn't do anything at all."

"He's very mean, isn't he?" But Ryou was frowning, like he didn't like what Marik was saying, and that was just as confusing and wrong as everything else. Marik didn't think that Ryou hated Bakura, because Marik didn't think that Ryou had the capacity to hate anyone. But as far as he knew, the two of them hadn't ever led been happy with the other half of their mutual existence.

Marik didn't say anything, so Ryou took it upon himself to break the silence. "So what should we do?"

_You should let Bakura take over so I don't have to tiptoe around you anymore and we can _really_ figure something out_, was what Marik really wanted to say, but apparently Bakura didn't seem to eager on coming out, and he didn't want to sound like he was either. "I'd like to leave, if at all possible. We need to figure out where we a re this time and if there's a way for us to get back to Domino."

"I don't think we can," Ryou said. "It's raining too hard and it's pitch black out there."

"Then we find flashlights. A little water never killed anyone," Marik said. He didn't want to be in this house any longer than he needed to. At this point, he didn't give a damn about the rain.

"I don't think we'll be finding those either, Marik," Ryou pointed out, once again helpful as ever. "Everything we've come across so far has been broken. If this house even had flashlights, I don't think they would work."

"So what are you suggesting then? That we just stay here?" Marik questioned. Ryou nodded.

"We may have to. At least until the morning when we can see. The rain may have stopped by then as well."

"Nope, that's okay, I think I'll go out there and chance it, if it's all the same to you. I'm getting really sick of being stuck in these random places and not knowing what's going on. I'm not staying here any longer than I need to," Marik stated. He left Ryou with that. He remembered having seen what he thought was the entrance on their tour of the house; now he just needed to find it again.

Which he did, fairly easily actually, given how much of a wreck the house was, but actually leaving turned out to be another matter altogether. When Marik opened the door, he saw that it was not just raining. It was practically a typhoon out there, and all he could see was a whirlwind of rain slashing across the darkness of the night. No matter. All he needed to do was walk until he found a temporary shelter that was not this place. But Marik didn't get the chance to do that. As he was about to leave, the large wooden door suddenly slammed shut. He barely had enough time to move out of the way as it rushed past. He fell on his ass and looked at the now tightly closed door in stunned silence. At least until he heard a slight shuffling sound from behind him and turned to see Ryou standing there.

"Did you close that?" Marik demanded. Ryou shook his head and didn't say a word. Frowning, Marik picked himself off the ground and opened the door again. Just like before, it slammed shut before he had a chance to leave it. He raised his hand to try again and suddenly a broken end table came flying from the closest room (thankfully on the other side of him) and smashed itself into the door. Marik jumped back quickly and he thought he heard Ryou swear behind him, which was strange, but not at all of importance compared to the flying furniture that had nearly just decapitated him.

"Marik, are you okay?" Ryou asked. Marik spun on him.

"Did you see that?" he demanded, eyes wide. One hand thrust out behind him to point to the wreckage. The other pointed to Ryou himself, like he wanted to make sure that the other wouldn't be going anywhere. "That table just flew into the door!"

"I saw, but I—"

But what Ryou was going to say did not matter at all, because another voice boomed out loud instead.

"AWAY. GET AWAY."

Marik jumped, Ryou looked vaguely concerned, and the voice abruptly stopped. Marik took a step closer to the door to test something.

"_AWAY!_" the voice shrieked, and Marik jumped back, theory confirmed. He looked at Ryou and Ryou looked at him.

"Well it looks like maybe I'll be staying after all."

00000

For a day they didn't mention the voice. For a day Marik sort of pretended like he wasn't trapped inside what he was sure was the most disgusting house he'd ever seen and that it wasn't still raining and dark out even though that was impossible. Marik pretended like he wasn't trapped with Ryou and then he pretended that he didn't care that Ryou wasn't Bakura, because Ryou made it pretty hard to pretend like he wasn't there when he kept talking all the time.

Not that Marik could really fault him. The silence was growing on his nerves as well, but making small talk was the last thing he wanted to do. It wasn't that he didn't like Ryou, because there wasn't really anything wrong with the boy, just that he'd… kind of been expecting Bakura.

He couldn't say that he was altogether upset that he was trapped with the evil spirit of the Sennen Ring of all people. He was better off with Bakura here than anyone else, or no one. Sure, in the end it was still all the spirit's fault that the two of them were stuck here, and Marik was still very angry about that, but it was getting harder to keep being angry about it when the damn idiot wasn't even around to remind Marik _why_ he was so angry.

A big part of his reason for betraying Yami and the rest of them was because of Bakura. Because he truly did want to be good, but the damn tomb robber hadn't left his mind for a second since Battle City had ended. They hadn't left on good terms (Marik was actually surprised that Bakura hadn't tried killing him yet—after all, he had gotten the spirit banished to the Shadow Realm _and_ had betrayed him as well), and for the longest time Marik was sure that that fact was the only reason he couldn't get Bakura out of his mind. Right up until Bakura invaded his sleeping dreams as well, and then Marik was sort of forced to admit that the actual heart of the matter was that he had something of a crush going on.

Thinking about it irritated and frustrated him, because Marik Ishtar didn't do crushes. Marik Ishtar didn't like people, and certainly not in _that_ way. And even if Marik Ishtar _were_ to like a person, it certainly wouldn't be a dead homicidal spirit with a revenge complex and an inability to understand anything more complex than the most basic of human emotions. He was still harboring more than just a little bitterness over his failed attempt to kiss the man back in the bakery shop. It had been a spur of the moment type thing that Marik regretted even now, but he turned all that regret into anger at Bakura for moving away so quickly. If he'd just stayed still, maybe they could have resolved some of this (one-sided apparently, if how rapidly Bakura ran out of the building meant anything) sexual tension.

Not that any of it mattered now. Bakura wasn't even around. Bakura was hiding away inside his host's mind and letting Ryou do all the work. It should have been a good thing, to get away for the spirit for a bit and to let his mind calm, but instead it did the very opposite of calming. If Bakura _were_ here, Marik didn't doubt that they would have figured something out by now. Or at least things would be less boring.

He looked around at the piles of mess in the room he'd picked out at the one he would reside in. It was the least messy one he could find, but that didn't mean a single thing really. It was a bedroom, but Marik would not have even brushed up against the bed. Instead, he had searched and searched for the cleanest bit of carpet he could find and lied curled up on it for the night as he'd tried to sleep through the thunderous noise of the rain coming down hard. Ryou had picked the room right next door. Although Marik had no idea what time it was (the clocks were all broken), it had to have been several long hours since they'd heard the voice, and they hadn't spoken once since it.

If it were Bakura… But Marik decided he'd had enough of thinking about Bakura for at least one hour. Sitting around and sulking that the nicer of the two was in control of the body and not the one he shouldn't have wanted was not going to figure out where he was and how he could get out. And who knew, just because he had never really talked to Ryou before didn't mean that the other teen was an idiot. He was probably smarter than Bakura, or in the very least not as emotionally stunted or likely to cause irrational rage in Marik.

He left his room, tried to steer clear of the door as much as he could (it was hanging by one bolt and Marik was quite sure that if he so much as breathed in the general proximity of it that it would fall over) and headed out into the hallway to get to Ryou's room.

Ryou's room did not have a door. Which was unfortunate if the other male wanted privacy, but perhaps for the best if he didn't want it falling on him. Ryou's back was turned to him, but Marik knew the difference well enough to know that the back of the white head of hair he saw did not belong to Ryou, but to Bakura. The hair was much more spiky, more tangled than before, as if Bakura had ran his hands through it numerous times and decided not to smooth it back down again. Marik's heart fluttered like the heart of a bird before he quashed any enthusiasm he might have felt at seeing Bakura and reminded him that he should have been angry that the spirit had gotten him into this mess to begin with.

Whatever Bakura was doing, he was doing it pretty intently. He hadn't moved at all during the time Marik hadn't moved because he was too busy staring at Bakura. Now he felt foolish for realizing that he had been staring, and he knocked on the wall rather sheepishly, then wondered why he hadn't just walked right in and had instead bothered with formalities. This made him frown, but then Bakura turned around and he looked a bit startled and that made Marik almost smile, until Bakura frowned like he wished he hadn't seen Marik at all.

"So you finally decided to show your face," Marik remarked, all bitterness and harsh words.

"Don't worry, I'll be gone soon enough," Bakura scoffed. If Marik had actually wanted Bakura gone, that would have made him happy. But he didn't. He wanted Bakura to remain right here so he could stay angry at him and so he could keep looking at him, because Bakura looked very nice.

"What, have you just given up and decided to remain in this place? I suppose you would like this mess better than the previous location. Maybe I should try to unearth some working part of the kitchen and make some creampuffs for you, hmm?" Marik taunted. Bakura's face flushed and his scowl deepened, but he didn't move at all. Marik wanted to anger him so much that he came closer and… did something. His brain wanted to insist that any movement bringing Bakura to him would devolve into sloppy makeouts, but more likely it would just bring the pain of Bakura's fist coming straight at his face. Yet Marik didn't want to let up on his anger any.

"You don't know anything, Marik," Bakura said instead of doing anything like what Marik wished for him to.

"Oh, now you're on the other end of that line," Marik said. "Is it supposed to make me feel bad or something? I don't. I'd really just like for you to stop hiding way and help me figure out a way to get out of this mess you dragged us both into."

"Ryou can help you with that," Bakura said dismissively. "I'm sure you'd appreciate his company more anyways." But Marik didn't want Ryou, he wanted Bakura, but Bakura was already leaving in place of his host. The wild white hair was settling and calming, the reddish tint to the eyes went away almost completely. The sharp points of the mouth slackened and then softened and before his eyes Ryou was back. He smiled nervously.

"I'm sorry, Bakura must have taken over," he said. The statement struck Marik as strange, but he was too disappointed by this sudden change to really work out how or why.

"That's fine. I wanted to talk to you anyways," Marik lied. He didn't want to talk to Ryou, but on the off chance that Bakura was still around and listening in on their conversation, he wanted it to sound like he had. Oh yes, he was bitter.

"Oh. About what?" Ryou asked. It was time to get down to business then and to again try to forget Bakura. Hard as it was.

Marik searched for a somewhat clean spot on the carpeted floor and took a seat. Ryou mirrored his movements and his face took on a measure of serious Marik hadn't seen on it before.

"We need to talk about where we are and what happened. And why we can't get out," Marik said. "That voice. It yelled at me when I tried to leave. You heard it too, didn't you?"

"I did," Ryou agreed. He frowned, another expression Marik hadn't ever seen him make that was too reminiscent of Bakura. Perhaps Ryou and Bakura were more similar than he had originally thought. Or perhaps he was just going crazy and starting to see Bakura in everything now. "It didn't seem to be coming from anywhere in particular, did it? I don't want to say it, but, do you think this place could be…"

Ryou's voice fell to something like a whisper, the perfect image of the way a character would act in his position if this were a shitty B-rated horror movie. And Marik was left to finish the chilling sentence.

"Haunted."

The moment he said the word, a cold air ran through the entire house and made the hair on the back of Marik's neck stand on end. It could have come from one of the various broken and thus open windows in the house. It could have come from the unreachable upstairs room. Unfortunately, Marik was sure that, just like in that B-rated horror movie idea, it had come from whatever pissed off spirit called this place home.

"Okay so we've decided that we're living a really shitty horror movie. And apparently the ghost of this place doesn't seem to want to let us leave through the front door. What do we do?" Marik asked, arms crossing. He wasn't scared of some phantom voice or a cold draft of wind. He was just cold and wanted to act obstinate.

"We could try leaving through the windows… but a lot of them still have broken glass shards around the windowsills or stuck in the frame. If there is a ghost and it's able to throw a table against the door, I don't think that would be a good idea," Ryou murmured. Marik winced. No, probably not.

"So we really are stuck here then, basically," he said.

"Unless we can think of a different way to escape. How did you get out of the first town?" Ryou asked.

"The people around us went crazy and became murderous and a bright flash of light enveloped us and brought us here," Marik explained shortly. Except Bakura had woken up as Ryou.

"Well if we could figure out why any of that happened, we could maybe find a way out of here," Ryou said.

"Uh-huh," Marik agreed. He stood and heard one of his knees pop. "Well, think I'm going to head back to my area then and ruminate on that for a while. I'll let you know if I think of anything." Except he wouldn't, because that was honestly the silliest suggestion he'd ever heard. He left Ryou's room without waiting for a response and headed on over into his own.

He did actually try to think about it for a moment, but nothing came to him. There was just nothing to connect a happytown turned murderous to a disgusting broken down house with a ghost. The only thing that seemed to connect the two in his mind was the bright light that had brought him to both places. First it had been the light that issued from the tablet of the Sennen Items, then it had come from a strike of lightning and brought him here. Of course it all had something to do with the Sennen Items, but Marik couldn't really think of what that could be.

00000

Marik woke up. He couldn't really say that it was night, and he couldn't really say that he'd been sleeping. It was more like he'd been lying uncomfortably on the cold floor, trying to make himself small to conserve body heat, and had fallen into a bottomless abyss of uncomfortable and fitful unconsciousness. It was dark out like it should have been during the night, but then it had been dark out for what had to have at least been forty-eight hours by now, and at any rate it was darker even than it got during nightfall.

Marik couldn't remember standing, but then he was standing, and then he was walking, and he couldn't really remember having wanted to do that, either. He was tired and more drained from his somewhat sleep than he was rested, so he didn't quite realize what was wrong with any of this until his foot stepped on a shard of broken glass and the pain raced liquid lightening from his toes to his torso to the tips of his fingers and he tried to stop himself from moving. Then he realized that he couldn't. He didn't have any control over his body.

Marik had never been controlled by the Sennen Rod, but he imagined this was what it felt like, and it was terrifying. But he had lost control of his body before, and what was even more terrifying was that this felt like back then. Back when he'd been kicked out of his own body and had to search for a way back in it. Marik had to search his own mind now to make sure that it was still just him in there, that his other hadn't come back and was planning on taking over yet again.

He tried to open his mouth to say nothing really, just something that would allow him to know he still had control over some aspect of himself and found that he could not. His entire body felt like it was encased in the frigid hand of some giant that had chosen to manipulate him at will.

He wanted to fight it but didn't have the first idea how to do that. Any movement Marik tried to make did not actually result in movement. He thought again to the Rod. Few people had broken his control over them, but it _had_ happened. The Pharaoh had been able to break Jounouchi free of his control during the duel they'd had together. Marik suppressed any fear he felt and thought about that now. The only person here with him was Bakura—or rather, Ryou. He did not have any connection with Ryou, but he had once forged a bond with Bakura during Battle City when the spirit had helped him fight against his other. Marik had not ever tried to find if the link between them still existed, but he searched for it now. If it was still there, if he could find it, if it still worked… he could call to Bakura.

"He haaateess yooouuu…" A voice called. It felt and sounded the same as the cold hand that clutched Marik tightly and the frigid wind that had caressed him earlier.

_Who are you?_ Marik wanted to shout, but he couldn't, so he ignored it and continued to search his mind for any sign of Bakura.

"He hates you…" the voice cooed again. "He haaatesss you, he doesn't want to seeee you, he hates you!"

It was distracting because the voice was repeating thoughts that Marik had briefly held earlier. When he'd tried to kiss Bakura and Bakura had ran so quickly, how had he been able to think anything else than that it must have been because Bakura did not feel the same way? The idea that Marik had been rejected without even confessing his absurd feelings made him angry and likely to snap out at Bakura for any little thing. Maybe Bakura hadn't hated him then, but what if he did now? What if the reason he was letting Ryou run the show was because he didn't even want to see Marik anymore?

"That's it!" the cold hissed.

That was it! He'd found the link! Marik pried it open and for a second felt the briefly unguarded essence of Bakura before the link clamped tightly shut down on Bakura's end. That gave him worry, but in an instant he could hear the noise of footsteps hurrying to him. Marik hoped that he would see Bakura and he did—but then it was Ryou.

Marik's body was still moving of its own accord and he could still do nothing to stop the coldness from edging him forward to… somewhere… but it didn't seem to matter as much. The closer Ryou got, the more Marik could feel the coldness leeching away from his body.

"I can't move!" he yelled loudly. The sound of the pouring rain was harsh and discordant, but his voice easily carried over the noise. "It's got a hold of my body!" He didn't need to yell, but he did, because he felt the need to cover up his disappointment.

Ryou reached forward and grabbed at him and it would have been better if it had been Bakura, but then the coldness was shrieking and Marik's body was now on fire, and he was burning and everything around him was slowly turning painfully bright. Marik stared at Ryou through it all and wished that it were really Ryou he was looking at.

He'd called out to Bakura. The link was between him and Bakura, not him and Ryou. Ryou would have had no way of knowing where he was or that he needed assistance. It would have had to be Bakura. It would have had to always be Bakura. Marik was only noticing it now though, because Bakura had been a little too late this time around to disguise himself.

Marik didn't know much about Ryou, but in hindsight, he should have been able to tell the difference. He'd seen Bakura put on an innocent face and fool Yuugi and the others by pretending to be his host more than on one occasion. It was embarrassing that Marik had fallen for the same trick, especially when Bakura wasn't all that good at it.

He could model Ryou's appearance and he could model Ryou's speech patterns and he could even copy something of Ryou's personality, but there were still aspects of Bakura that still slipped. Ryou didn't refer to Yami as "Pharaoh" and Ryou probably would have never wanted to talk about the spirit residing in him, much less remark on how cruel he was and call him "Bakura." Ryou could not have snuck around a dark, messy room without falling and perhaps even hurting himself, and Ryou shouldn't have ever looked like Bakura, because Ryou was as separate from Bakura as the sun was from the moon, even if they both resided in the same sky. It had always been Bakura, just a Bakura trying to pass himself off as someone else.

Maybe Bakura really did hate him like the voice said. He apparently no longer wanted anything else to do with Marik, to the point where he was trying to hide even his real identity. It hurt, and Marik couldn't lie to himself and say that it didn't. Bakura had always seemed interested in him before, but… Maybe it was because he'd been a different person before. The person he was during the Battle City tournament was not the same person he was now. Bakura had already said as much. Maybe Bakura was still looking for that person. But Marik wasn't that person. He couldn't be that person. Not anymore. That person was gone. But… if Bakura wanted to pretend, then maybe Marik could too. Maybe he could get the spirit interested in him again.

So as the bright light engulfed them both, Marik thought that he had a plan.

00000

Bakura was again the second to wake up. This time he did not wake to Marik holding him and he did not see the blonde above him looking slightly worried but in general attractive as all hell. It would have been a much kinder way of waking up. Instead, Bakura opened his eyes and found that his head felt like it had been smacked around with a sledgehammer and on top of that he had an unpleasant bout of nausea that made him feel like he required a porcelain toilet. He was also strapped down tightly to a seat, which in his experience was never a situation to wake up to.

Bakura looked around and could not even begin to describe where he was. There were seats, there was metal, there were tons of buttons and display screens and loud noises and he didn't like any of it. It all reminded him of the one unpleasant time he'd decided to take over the body of one of his previous hosts to experience what flying a plane felt like, only much worse. Wherever he was was narrow like a plane but much more complicated and unfamiliar. He nearly let out an audible sigh of relief when he noticed Marik sitting down in a seat at the other side of the metal room from him.

But then he took more notice of Marik and saw that something was definitely wrong here. At first he convinced himself that it was because he still felt nauseous and maybe that was affecting his vision as well. But no, he shook his head and blinked a few times and each time Marik's hair was still way more spiked than it should have been. His actions must have caught the attention of the blonde, because then Marik was turning and greeting him with a wide scar of a grin that ran from ear to ear and was much too wide yet somehow not exactly like the grin he'd remembered being on the face of this maniac.

"So the creampuff wakes up after all," Malik said and Bakura had to remember that he was still restrained and tightly locked into his seat so he couldn't stomp on over and rip the bastard's tongue out.

Besides that, he was Ryou. Ryou who was disgustingly weak and likely would have fainted had he seen what Bakura had just imagined. But Ryou had been sleeping peacefully in Bakura's mind for a very long time now and wasn't due to wake up any time soon, so the real Ryou did not see the image Bakura created in his own head. A shame. Hearing his host's pathetic reaction to it may have cheered him up some. This man was not supposed to exist anymore, and the fact that he did made Bakura's blood boil.

Bakura put on the sweetest face he could and also tried to look vaguely startled by this new person, because Ryou had never met the other side of Marik and Ryou didn't know anything about this man at all. Maybe that would be enough to keep Ryou alive and Bakura with his disguise intact. He didn't want to drop the Ryou act is he didn't have to, and while Malik's return couldn't mean anything good, for now he was just going to watch and see how things turned out.

"Oh, I must have been sleeping for a while then," Bakura said, trying to sound clueless. He was still pretty clueless as to where he was now and what was going on, but he usually hide that behind grins and crude remarks. "Who are you? Do you know where we are?"

"I'm Malik," the asshole explained. "You can think of me as another version of Marik."

The worse version, Bakura wanted to scoff. But instead he kept concentrating on acting like he only had half a brain and couldn't tell when someone dangerous was nearby. "Oh, like Bakura then?"

"Something like that," Malik agreed. For a moment his gaze lowered to Bakura's chest. More specifically, the spot where the Sennen Ring usually hung from is neck. It looked like an unconscious movement. Malik's face darkened when he did it, but then he was again grinning in that not-quite right way of his and his electric eyes were holding Bakura tightly.

"We're on a ship," Malik announced finally, and just like that everything was normal again. As normal as normal could possibly get in this situation. But Bakura was no longer left with a vaguely unsettling sense of wrongness. He smiled although he wanted to tell Malik that he was an imbecile because he had been on ships before and this was not a ship, but Malik was still smiling like he knew what Bakura was thinking.

"A spaceship," he finally finished.

Bakura couldn't help it; a laugh tore free of him that represented all of him and none of the Ryou he was trying to be. Yet at that very moment he was saved by a sudden rough movement of the ship, or spaceship, or whatever it was that they were on. The entire structure creaked and screamed like something was being broken off of it. Bakura's hands gripped onto the arms of the chair he was strapped to and the laughter died choking in his throat. A quick glance at Malik let him know that the other yami was in much the same condition and he didn't feel so pathetic anymore.

Then none of that mattered because the air was moving much too slow for everything else and Bakura felt like he couldn't get enough of it into his lungs and he was gasping and the colors of everything around him were bleeding and running together and leaving him far behind. Sound seemed to distort and everything was going either too slow or too fast and then it was all over and he fell down into his seat before slowly rising back up again. The straps tugged lightly at the strange bulky clothing he was wearing, the tugs of convincing lover, but Bakura didn't touch them. Bakura didn't want to move until he felt like his stomach reached the rest of his body in time.

So he just gasped in his seat and beside him Malik did the same. Neither of them mentioned this to the other or even looked over at the other. Bakura supposed he wasn't being very Ryou-like right now, but he couldn't really find it in him to give a single damn at the moment. Malik wasn't being very Malik-like, although Bakura supposed the situation had shaken him up just as much.

Bakura nearly jumped in his seat (which he supposed was Ryou-like behavior, just not Bakura-like) when a speaker system came on from someone above him and a harsh, raspy scream-like noise started to come from it. It sounded like something was trying to speak but was never going to succeed. Then it turned of, and Bakura decided he'd had about enough of this. His hands flew to the buckle to the seat straps and undid it. He took a step out in front of him and then nearly bashed his head into the ceiling of the metallic contraption as his body began to float upwards of its own accord.

Malik was laughing at him, the noise almost as discordant as the sound that had just been playing over the speakers. But there was a certain shocked quality to it that Bakura didn't miss. The other personality was just as unnerved by all of this.

"I told you that we're on a spaceship!" Malik cackled. "We're in space now! There isn't any gravity."

"I see," Bakura responded. He knew about gravity, of course. Just because he'd been born centuries ago didn't mean that he was uneducated. He had just never expected to be thrown into a situation where the lack of gravity would ever be a thing concerning him. He'd never expected to go to space. The fact that he was might have thrilled him if he weren't still troubled by the vague sensation of wanting to be sick and not knowing why he was apparently in space, or what that horrid creature over the speaker was. While he couldn't do anything about his stomach, he could find out about the creature, and from it maybe learn of why he was here.

Bakura made his way out of this compartment of the ship by clinging onto whatever holdings he could find to keep him from once again floating on up to the ceiling. Ryou hadn't ever been very interested in them, but Bakura had seen silly American movies before where the main characters were in space. He'd never really paid much attention to them, but he did know that there should have been a way to restore gravity to the craft. Apparently the pilot didn't think that was needed. But Bakura would educate the man on that point.

He found out quickly that he had also not paid enough attention to those space movies to figure out the workings of the inside of a spaceship. Malik was following behind him silently, and it was more than a bit unnerving but he didn't seem up to creating any mischief or killing and destroying anything just yet. He just followed and marveled silently at the contraptions around him. Bakura hadn't thought he would care.

He located what he thought was the piloting area. When he stepped into the room it looked like the piloting area. Yet in the seat he thought would hold a human being was instead a large seabird with a very characteristic throat pouch.

"What." Bakura couldn't help it; he let his disguise slide some.

"Is that what I think it is?" Malik asked. He had apparently let his psychotic personality slide some as well.

The bird in the pilot seat hopped around and turned itself around and looked them both in the eye with its yellow-gray ones. It opened its large bill and let out that horrid "k-r-r-r-r-r-r" screaming noise it had made before. It was very much a pelican.

"I'm done," Bakura announced. "I'm done, I'm done. I'm not doing this anymore. I am done."

The pelican opened its bill again and made that horrid noise. Apparently it was trying to communicate. Of course it was. It only made sense that it would want to speak with them.

"I think we're going to the moon," Malik frowned. Bakura started at him. He was bent over the control panels, and when he spoke the pelican turned to him now and rustled its large wings a bit and sort of bobbed its head. The moon. They were headed to the moon. With a pelican as the pilot. Of course. It all made sense.

"Why?" Bakura exploded. "Why are we going to the moon? The other situations at least made a slight amount of sense, but this? And a _pelican_ of all things!"

"Maybe pelicans are good pilots," Malik said, still frowning.

"No they're not!" Bakura shot back. "Pelicans are horrible, horrible pilots!" He quieted down some, just a bit ashamed of his outburst and how thoroughly he had let his own personality show, then closed his eyes and tried to get back under control.

"I'm sorry for yelling," he apologized, forcing his voice to sound calmer. When he opened his eyes Bakura attempted a small smile. The words felt and tested like dirt. "I was just a little upset. It's a bit bothersome going from situation to situation like this. I think I'm just going to find a place to lie down."

Malik looked at him straight-faced, then grinned. "Whatever you say, creampuff."

Bakura decided he would punch him in the face. Not right now, because he hadn't been lying when he'd said that he wanted to lie down, but definitely very soon in the near future. And he would need to find out what exactly had happened to Marik and why his other was here. That worried him more than he cared to admit. Marik was the one who had called out to him back when they'd been in the haunted house, but… he'd woken up as his other personality. Maybe something had happened. Something had to have happened. Bakura would get to the bottom of it, but first he had to get used to the fact that he was being flown to the moon by a seabird.

00000

Bakura dreamt of the pelican. It flapped its large wings to keep itself hovering in place and looked into Bakura's soul with its beady, somehow accusing eyes.

"Oh gods why are you here?"

"I'm here to tell you what you want, Bakura."

The pelican's voice was still obnoxious and sounded too much like screaming for it to at all be anything like a symphony on his ears, but at least it wasn't making the terrible screeching noise anymore. Not that that made the fact that he was dreaming about a giant seabird—which also happened to be the pilot of this spacecraft—any better.

"Well you aren't doing a good job because what I really want is for you to be gone," Bakura spat out. The pelican made a gargled chocking sort of noise and then opened its wide bill up yet again.

"Perhaps you would like this better then."

And then his subconscious turned the bird into Marik. Only this Marik was terrifying instead of attractive because Bakura knew that he was actually a pelican in disguise, and he still possessed the pelican's yellow-gray eyes instead of the gorgeous lilac color. Bakura frowned.

"What are you trying to imply here?" he questioned.

"I am merely showing you what it is that your consciousness desires," the pelican-turned Marik answered. It spoke with Marik's voice, but the pelican's original raspy tone overlaid Marik's nasally words and made the whole effect of speech sound garbled and even more frustrating to listen to than Bakura normally got when listening to Marik speak.

"Well tough shit for my subconscious, isn't it? It looks like Marik's vacated the premises and my new roommate is a psycho," Bakura stated.

"But you know that isn't true," the pelican said. That wasn't exactly true. There was something off about Malik, and he seemed a hell of a lot more subdued than the crazy darkness who'd dueled him long ago, but that didn't mean that this wasn't actually Malik. It was just a thought that he'd had, persistently tickling the back of his mind and now brought out by the words of a dreambird.

"He's doing the exact same thing you are. The other personality is gone and Marik is hiding just as you are," the pelican continued.

"You don't know that for a fact!" Bakura argued. He didn't want to know it for a fact. He was acting like Ryou because he thought that Marik didn't want anything to do with him. Marik liked _Ryou_, not him. So Bakura was giving Marik exactly what he wanted. Now this bird was telling him that Marik hated him so much, he didn't even want to act like himself, but instead wanted to hide behind the face of his yami?

"The two of you need to stop hiding," the pelican said.

"I'm not hiding!" Bakura shot back hotly. He _didn't_ hide. He didn't run away from things. "Marik wanted Ryou, so I gave him Ryou! If he doesn't want him now, then that's his fault, not mine!"

"Talk to him," the pelican advised. Bakura scoffed. The bird turned back into a bird and turned his head to give him a disapproving look with one of his eyes. "He is what you want. If you truly desire him, then you'll figure something out."

Bakura scoffed again. Yes, he wanted Marik, he'd come to terms with that, and knowing that Marik didn't want him hurt like a bitch, but he wasn't going to cry about it. He hadn't ever needed anyone in his life, and he didn't need anyone now either even though Marik was perfect in nearly every way. He didn't need to talk with the blonde. Things could continue down this path until they got out of this whole mess and he got the ultimate power of the Sennen Items and then ruled over the world like he was meant to and didn't have to see Marik ever again.

With a huge flap of its wings, the pelican flew at Bakura and hit him with its long bill. It shrieked at him and Bakura woke up.

00000

Bakura woke up. His head hurt. It was all the fault of that damn pelican. The bird's laughing shriek stayed with him in his mind and told him the same thing that his dream had; he needed to go talk to Marik. The urge to find Marik and talk with him and settle all of this was as strong as the urge he'd felt to consume those pastries back in the happytown. That urge was altogether gone now, and Bakura felt embarrassed to think back on it now, but it seemed to have moved on to a different subject. The intense need to soothe it was almost overwhelming.

Bakura couldn't say where exactly Marik—or rather Malik, as he was pretending to be—was hiding, but he had a pretty good feeling that he would find him eventually. There were only so many areas the blonde could hide from him aboard the spacecraft.

He found Marik looking at one of the small windows that allowed them to see the cold, empty expanse of space surrounding them. His wildly-spiked hair had deflated some, like whatever he'd put in it to make it stay like that was beginning to lose its hold. It only lent further supposed to the idea that this really was still the original Marik. He was looking at the slowly shrinking sphere of the Earth out the window.

"We need to talk," Bakura said. He did not bother to disguise his voice or his hair, and he did not mask his usual expression with a smile that hurt his mouth. This took Marik by surprise, and when he turned around to face Bakura it was as Marik, not Malik. But then the grin was back and the walls had been built again to hide any weakness.

"Did you enjoy your beauty nap?" Marik cackled.

"Yes, quite a bit actually," Bakura remarked, "I thought about this situation here and decided it needed to be resolved. So let's talk, you and I, and drop all of these silly pretenses. You know that I'm not my host and I know that you aren't your yami."

"Have you gone crazy? I'm afraid that Marik isn't here anymore," Marik said, though it was obvious from his voice that Bakura had caught him off guard some. Bakura grinned and moved in as close to Marik as he could while still floating around like an idiot. It wasn't very easy to do. He should have mentioned that to the pelican, now that he thought about it. Marik's grin was still plastered to his face, but it was looking decidedly shaky.

"Come on, Marik, I know it's you. You aren't fooling anyone. It's pointless to keep the act up," Bakura grinned.

"Fine then," Marik spat out. The grin disappeared. The fire in his eyes burned and he was acting like himself again. Bakura wished it were possible to move closer still and become one with that fire. "Fine, I'm lying. I'm Marik. Now what do you want?"

"Aw, that's not very nice of you. I thought we were going to work together to figure this out. I just wanted to see what was troubling so much that you had to hide behind the face of your darkness," Bakura remarked offhandedly.

"Likely the same thing that made you think you could pretend to act like your host and I wouldn't notice the difference," Marik said back, equally cool and as venomous as Bakura himself.

Bakura didn't say anything in response to that right away. He'd been expecting it and had known that his own weakness would be thrown right back in his face, but he hadn't thought of how to cover it up yet. Marik waited.

"Come on, Bakura, I thought you wanted to work together to figure this thing out. That's what you said, anyway. Yet it seems to me like all you really do is just hamper our efforts. In the first town you wasted your time chasing after deserts, and in the last you hid and hoped that I wouldn't notice," Marik taunted.

"I thought you would appreciate working with Ryou better," Bakura responded tactfully. Marik's face screwed up and when he spoke it was with much more anger than Bakura thought his statement should have brought out. Evidently there was something more going on here that he had missed.

"You really don't have a clue, do you? You're so infuriating, and you don't even know why! I don't know why I bother with you," Marik hissed out. Bakura knew he was going to turn to leave before he went through the motions himself. And he didn't really want him to. He didn't want to see Marik turning and leaving him. He didn't ever want to see Marik's back facing him. So he reached out his hand, and then the ship decided to go into overdrive.

It was all the damn pelican's fault, Bakura knew it. How he hated that pelican. One moment he had taken a hold of Marik's strange suit thing and turned him around, and then the next the shi p had shaken around and pushed the two males together in the most cliché of ways. Bakura hated it. It was as if his life had suddenly turned into a scene from a rom-com, and he knew it was all because of something the pelican had done. But his lips were perfectly fitted to Marik's now, because despite the lack of gravity neither of them had been quick enough to move out of the way and prevent their mouth from locking with one another's.

Marik didn't move away and neither did Bakura. But Marik didn't move his lips at all, and neither did Bakura. The two stared each other down with intimidating expressions like both wanted the other to be the first to capitulate and back down or to move forward. But neither was about to, so instead they just sort of floated around each other connected at the mouths. It was awkward, to say the least, and not how Bakura had imagined kissing Marik.

The spaceship moved again and it was enough to break them up. Marik coughed. Bakura's eyes sort of wandered a bit. The sexual tension rose to the point where Bakura could feel it. A loud screeching screaming noise came over the speakers and Bakura again reiterated in his mind how much he really hated that pelican.

"Fine, fine! I got it!" Bakura yelled out loud. Marik's brows bunched together and he looked perplexed. "Marik, I like you. I don't fucking know why, because you're an irritating and emotional prick who can't seem to decide whether he wants to be good or evil, but I want you. And I don't really give a damn if you hate me."

"When did I ever say I hated you?" Marik asked. It wasn't what Bakura was expecting to hear Marik say, and he had to admit that he was disappointed. Not that he had expected or even wanted loud proclamations of love, but he'd at least wanted to hear that this wasn't all completely one-sided.

"Should I write all the times out?" Bakura asked dryly. "I think the most recent was when you said that everything was all my fault, and you mentioned how happy yourself, my host, and everyone else would be without me around."

"Oh." It was a silent, embarrassed admission of guilt. "I was angry then."

"I realized," Bakura said.

"Well I didn't exactly mean all of that. I mean, I'm sure Ryou and the Pharaoh _would_ be happier if you weren't around, and I still think this is all your fault—"

"Reassuring," Bakura interrupted. Marik glared at him.

"But as I was saying, I don't want you gone. I'm much happier with you being here," Marik finished.

"Even though this is all my fault?" Bakura asked. He couldn't help it; he was hopeful.

"Even though this is all your fault," Marik agreed. He was grinning now and floating much closer to Bakura than he had been before. That was good, Bakura thought. That was very good. He was pretty sure that sexual tension was nearly burning between them now.

"And I don't want Ryou to be here, I would much rather have you messing everything up. Because I'm horribly attracted to you despite how much of an idiot and an asshole you are. That's the real reason I betrayed the Pharaoh."

"So I'm the better eye-candy then, hmm?"

"Much better."

Marik was as close as he'd been that day in the bakery before Bakura had run off. He was grinning in that sultry, sexy way of his, and his lips were just close enough for Bakura to devour them. He'd wanted to do just that from the beginning, he realized. He'd always wanted Marik. Marik was much too rare a treasure to pass up without taking him all.

"So can we fuck now?" Bakura asked.

"We can," Marik answered. Bakura took Marik and his lips all for his own.

And then the sound of that horrid screaming "k-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r" interrupted everything and the ship was going out of control and Bakura was basically flying everywhere because there still wasn't any gravity and he didn't know what the _fuck_ that pelican was doing, but it certainly wasn't flying the damn spaceship correctly.

"Oh fuck!" Marik swore. Bakura averted his gaze from the direction of the pilot's cabin to the small window the two were still floating nearby and saw exactly what was causing so much trouble. The earth was gone. In its place the moon was looming closer and closer and was coming at a much faster pace than it probably should have been.

"We need to get to that pelican," Bakura stated. Marik nodded. The two grabbed each other's hands and tried their best to make their way to the pilot's quarters without crashing into anything that looked important. It was damn neigh impossible. Whatever had happened, the ship was clearly out of control. The two of them were tossed every which way.

They had almost reached it. Then the entire ship came to a shuddering, screeching halt—and sped up again. Bakura's hand was wrenched from Marik's. He crashed into the pilot door and Marik was thrown to the other side of the room. The ship groaned and creaked and the world spin in front of Bakura's eyes and the vaguely sick feeling he'd been having all the while turned into an extremely sick feeling and he pressed tightly to his stomach to keep himself from vomiting.

"Mark!"

"I'm fine," Marik called out. He'd hit something hard when he'd crashed, and bright red blobs of blood were issuing from somewhere inside his suit. He looked anything but fine. His eyes were too wide and his expression was too frantic.

"See what's going on!"

Bakura nodded. He had to find out what was going on. He grabbed the door but it wouldn't open; something in the crash had jammed it tightly shut. But it didn't matter for long because the spaceship came to a second careening crash and the door flew open and knocked both males inside of it.

He only had a few seconds and nothing he looked at seemed to make sense. The pelican was groaning and screaming and its wings were fluttering in agitation. The buttons and displays above the pilot seat were flashing warning signs and all at once it hit Bakura that they were definitely going to crash, no way around it. The pelican looked him in the eye and screeched.

"Fuck you, no one's dying!" Bakura yelled back. He looked around him, spotted Marik. Blood was still floating all around the blonde and Marik wasn't alert enough for it to be all right. Bakura pushed off against the nearest surface he could find and grabbed the blonde and brought him close to him.

"What's happening? What's going on?" Marik asked.

"Just keep your eyes open!" Bakura yelled. "Don't you are fall asleep!" Marik nodded but the movement was weak. Bakura ignored it for now because if he thought about it he would not be able to do what he needed to do. He was worried, yes, but he could allow himself to be distracted by it. He propelled himself forward again with Marik in arm and grabbed the pelican in his other. It groaned indignantly.

"Shut up I said we're getting out of here!" Bakura said. The pelican gestured widely with its head, and Bakura saw that it was a little too late for that now. The surface of the moon was so close he could see each crater that made up its bespeckled surface, it was only growing larger and larger. They were fucked. They were going to crash into the surface of the moon and they were going to die.

The spaceship crashed. The pelican screamed. Bakura and Marik were thrown apart. There are no explosions in space, but there was something, and it engulfed everything in a bright light that was horribly familiar, but Bakura really couldn't remember how because his consciousness was fading.

00000

"You have done well."

Bakura looked up. He'd never really worshipped the Gods in the same way that those also born during his first lifetime did. He supposed once he had, but the murder of his entire family and village had taught him to depend on no one and nothing other than himself. But even one such as him knew that he was facing the god of resurrection and fertility when he saw him.

Beside him, Marik stood slack-jawed and amazed. By this response alone, Bakura guessed that Marik did believe in the old Gods, and he believed in them strongly. It made sense, of course. He'd been living in an underground tomb for his entire life.

"You're heart is still nowhere near light enough to balance the scales, but I can sense that some of the burden has left it," Osiris said. Bakura wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to that. Bakura wasn't sure he even really understood what was happening right now, much less how he was supposed to act in the presence of a god, perhaps two. If the scales were being spoken of, then Anubis had to be lurking about somewhere.

"What the hell are you saying?" Bakura asked.

"Bakura!" Marik yelled. Then hit him. Hard. Bakura rubbed the area and glared and Marik glared back and Osris made a noise that might have been a chuckle but might not have been. It brought both male's attention back to him.

"If every soul who collected the Sennen Items was granted the wish they desired, this world would have come to an end long ago," Osiris explained. "To prevent their great power from getting out of hand, a test had to be created. Only those pure of heart would be able to obtain the powers held by these items. Your friend the Pharaoh saw this when you put his Puzzle in with the other Items. He was trying to warn you. He didn't think you would succeed."

"But I did, right?" Bakura asked. "The ultimate power is mine."

"If you truly think your heart is light enough for something like that, we can proceed with the weighing right now," a voice hissed. A second figure came into view. The head of a jackal. Anubis. Bakura grinned wryly.

"I think we'll keep my heart right where it is, thanks," he said. Marik chose this moment to speak. He left Bakura's side and approached the two gods. Bakura felt an immense irrational amount of fear fill him. He was suddenly positive that these two would kill Marik if he left his side.

"So this was all a test then. To see if Bakura's heart was light enough? And he failed it," Marik said.

"Correct," Osisris answered. The god's eyes fell from Marik to Bakura, then back again. "His heart is too heavy to be gifted with the ultimate power. In most cases, failure usually results in death. However, your case is… interesting. You will not be given the power of the Sennen Items, Bakura. But you will be allowed to keep living and to keep trying. If you can make your heart light enough an continue to learn through trials and errors, then perhaps you will have what you desire after all."

The voice was fading. The scales and the jackal-headed god who carried them were slowly darkening and beginning to leech together into a dripping image that finally melted away into nothing. The world did not turn to white this time around. The world dyed itself black

00000

and when Bakura woke this time he was in Domino. To be more precise, he was in his host's apartment. The familiar weight of the Sennen Ring rested against his chest. The unfamiliar weight of a human body rested against his shoulder. Marik stirred and opened his eyes and smiled.

"Well well, look at that," he said, pointing to the Ring. Its spikes were glowing and pointing to an area somewhere out in the city.

"There's an Item nearby," Bakura mused.

"You have to gather them all over again," Marik said. Bakura nodded. He thought he should be angry. He was a bit, but mostly he felt content. He closed his eyes, concentrated a bit, thought of something different. He heard a soft chuckle and when he opened them, the points of the Ring were turned to something different.

"We did get interrupted earlier, didn't we?" Marik asked.

"That we did," Bakura remarked. The Ring jangled against his skin, seemingly eager to point out that the object he wanted most was right here. Marik rested a hand on it and slowly slid on top of Bakura.

"Well let's fix that then," he said. The Ring and Bakura both shook in agreement.

* * *

><p>Okay real quick, because I really want to go to bed and am super tired. While writing I had this fledgling of an idea of each of the different "scenes" Bakura and Marik find themselves in be related to the order in which Bakura put the Items into the huge stone tablet thing in some way. First the Scales, which were obviously mentioned in the end. The first scene related to the Key and the Eye, both of which are related to the mind and seeing the way people think. The next two were the Necklace and the Rod, one of which tells the future, and the other which allows the user to have control over another person. Then the last two were the Puzzle and the Ring, which rid a mind of evil and lead one to what she desires most, in that order. That may or may not have worked out as I wanted it to, but I tried to make it so it did!

Oh, also! Is anyone going to Sugoicon? I am! So if you're going, you should let me know, hint hint. It would be a lot of fun to meet people!

Lastly, thank you to all of my reviewers! I know I lied a lot about when chapters would be coming out, but I'm actually still very impressed with myself for being able to get such a large amount of words out in the period of time that I did. It's been a little over a year, which considering how long it took me to do Blood isn't bad at all. And so a huge amount of thanks to the reviewers who make me want to update! Thanks for sticking with this fic! I love you all!


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